Oceanis Flies the Flag for Maritime Startups

Oceanis, the Hamburg-based digital ship finance platform, has been selected as one of only 10 international startups to join Plug and Play's ‘Fintech Europe’ program.

After screening applications from all over the world and intensive weeks of reviewing preselected startups with the partners, the final group of ten companies have been accepted into Fintech Europe. The program aims at facilitating pilots, POCs, and business development opportunities for the participating startups and financial institutions.

Now into its fifth-round of company selection and support, Oceanis is the only maritime-focused company to have been accepted into the world’s leading Fintech startup program. The program seeks to support innovation in the world of Financial Services.

Maximillian Otto, Oceanis CEO commented “It’s a great honor to be selected for the Fintech Europe program. This shows that the ideas coming out of the shipping industry, in whatever form they may take, are finally receiving the attention and interest of the wider innovation landscape that is required to build scalable products. 

“Shipping often portrays itself as traditional and very ‘niche’. Whereas, in reality, good ideas get strong support quickly and innovative business models from other industries can be adopted successfully. Oceanis, and our concept of reshaping the ship finance sector through digitization, is a great example of this. If we had not already received strong industry support, we would not have been selected into a program of Fintech Europe’s caliber.” 

Fintech Europe aims to facilitate pilot projects, introductions, and business development opportunities for some of the world’s leading fintech startups. As part of this program, Oceanis will be introduced to Plug and Play's corporate partners and will have the chance to run projects and explore investment opportunities with these companies.

Plug and Play's fintech-focused innovation platform is based out of Frankfurt and includes partner companies such as Deutsche Bank, TechQuartier, BNP Paribas, Nets Group, Nexi, UniCredit, Aareal Bank, Abanca, Danske Bank, DZ Bank, Elo, UBI Banca, and Raiffeisen Bank International. 

“We’ve created a digital tool for shipowners that assists in sourcing and securing their required debt funding in an efficient and fast way. There is a real need for the shipping industry to diversify funding channels and attract new capital providers into the asset-backed ship finance market. We hope that our involvement in Fintech Europe will help achieve this,” Otto says.