Israeli predictive maritime intelligence firm Windward has lined up a £34.5m ($46m) initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM market this month, a move seen as the first amongst maritime tech players.
“If I am not mistaken, this will be the first ever pure-play maritime tech company to be publicly listed,” commented Dr. Roar Adland, shipping professor at the Norwegian School of Economics via LinkedIn.
Windward is placing around 22.2m new and existing ordinary shares at a price of 155 pence ($2.07) per share, comprising approximately £26.3m of new capital for the company and £8.2m for certain existing shareholders and option holders.
On admission and commencement of trade, expected to take place on December 6, the company will have approximately 81,6m ordinary shares in issue with a market cap of £126.5m.
Chaired by Lord Browne, former CEO of BP, other investors in Windward include Marc Benioff, the Salesforce chairman and CEO, and former CIA director, David Petraeus, as well as the two founders, Ami Daniel and Matan Peled, who each own 7%.
Ami Daniel, CEO and co-founder of Windward, said: “We are delighted with the support we have received, providing us with the firepower to increase investment in our innovative AI-powered platform. Having invested over $25m into the platform to date and secured many of the world’s leading blue-chip maritime industry participants as customers, we are confident we have built strong foundations for future growth.
“Our proposed admission to AIM marks an important milestone in our journey and I would like to thank all of our existing and new investors for supporting our vision, and importantly, all of the team at Windward who have made this possible.”
Windward has over 70 globally spread customers, including BP, Shell, HSBC, Gard, Danske Bank, and government agencies, including agencies from the US Department of Defence and Homeland Security, Frontex and the UN. The net proceeds of the placing are approximately £22.5m ($29.9m) and will be applied principally to expanding the business, including investment in sales and marketing and focusing on new geographies.
