Boaters know well that when one stops in a roadstead and drops anchor, perhaps even for long periods including overnight stops, there is no guarantee that it will remain anchored to the seabed for as long as necessary. Elements such as wind, currents, and the seabed, which is not exactly suitable in the long term, can intervene and cause the anchor to shift or even render it incapable of doing its job, with the risk that the boat will move and perhaps end up against other boats or elements of the coast such as banks, rocks or shoals. One of the systems that skippers adopt is therefore that of constant vigilance of the anchor’s stability, never getting distracted and never leaving anything to chance. Of course, always remaining vigilant, sleeping with one eye open, is not a comfortable thing to do, and here, as is now the case for many situations on a boat, technology intervenes and is increasingly welcomed by those who sail, especially yachtsmen but also more experienced sailors.
There are more and more devices that help in boat management as well as navigation and safety support. Among them is now also VisionAnchor, a Slovenian start-up that has developed a system to constantly track the status of the anchor and receive immediate alerts if it loses grip.
The device consists of a smart buoy and the appropriate app that allows you to set the anchor data and alarms to be sent by the device in the event of conditions that may trigger the need to verify that there are no situations that require prompt action.
The startup is founded by Matija Jašarov, Anže Peklenk and Andrej Podbevšek, who are also CEO, CTO and CMO of VisionAnchor (pictured), respectively. The startup, which has so far raised EUR 400,000 from Techstars, EIT Digital, Euspa, Weidmann-Paulsson and the Slovenian Entrepreneural Fund, is aiming for a EUR 800,000 pre-seed follow-on round and a turnover of around EUR 2.5 million in 2025.
“We have identified our ideal customer profile in tech-savvy boat owners. We got more than 2500 sign-ups and generated 50,000 Euros in pre-orders in the last 2 months,” the CEO tells Startupbusiness. We have a patented solution that solves one of the industry’s main problems reliably and cost-effectively. We have simplified and merged several tools into one easy-to-use solution. Once we add more features such as sensors and machine learning, the PoC is already in place, we will soon have a data collection network generated by the users of our devices. We are building a new standard in the industry, a bit like what happened with parking cameras/sensors for cars, but for boats. We have an amazing team that includes a robotics engineer and a mentor with years of engineering, innovation and business consulting”.
Convinced that the adoption of technological tools will become more and more widespread among yachtsmen, the founders of VisionAnchor have, however, defined their customer profile very precisely, in order to have as effective an approach to the market as possible and then have data that is actually useful for further development: “We have excluded owners of yachts that do not spend the night on the boat, i.e. smaller than 8 metres. We have also excluded, for the time being, yachts longer than 50 metres, as they have a crew member responsible for monitoring the anchor. We have found that owners of 15-25 metre motor yachts mostly opt for a video version of the system, while sailing yachts usually opt for a localised buoy only version due to its size and lower price. We have also seen interest from commercial fleets that spend some time at anchor and for them it is essential to stay anchored and have a reliable alarm. Anchor manufacturers have contacted us interested in selling the product as a package and we have talked to yacht manufacturers about selling the units as an add-on for new yachts and refurbishments.”
The start-up conducted 100 interviews and surveys with owners and captains and online marketing campaigns, and in the last three months sent 10 beta units to testers at charter companies, sailing schools, distributors, NGOs, etc.: ‘We started with direct B2C pre-orders to get to know our customers. We have sold 60 units in the last two months to customers from Germany, the UK and Italy. We received a partnership proposal from Silent yachts, a manufacturer of electric catamarans. We were also contacted by several distributors from Europe, the Middle East and Turkey. We confirmed a partnership with a German and an Italian distributor. We also carried out a beta test with a UK charter company with 20 boats.
Boat owners are getting younger and therefore more in touch with technology. Technology is also more accessible and what used to be a typically traditional market is becoming more digitised and intelligent, thanks to the availability of more technological solutions. The boating market is also a luxury market, so margins are high. The yachting sector is growing at an annual rate of 4.1 per cent, with some yards reporting increases of 20 to 30 per cent per year from 2019, even taking into account the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. It is becoming a more accessible market for the middle class, especially with charter boats: ” As an innovation in the industry, we believe we can achieve a 5-10% market share in the 8-24 metre boat segment. VisionAnchor is one of the first solutions on the market, so we have the potential to scale quickly and create a new market category: smart anchoring . We are introducing additive manufacturing, which makes the production and adaptation of units more agile, greener and faster than traditional manufacturing. Our product is modular, so any replacements or upgrades are done quickly, cheaply and with a smaller carbon footprint”.
VisionAnchor is also very attentive to the environmental impact and therefore its devices are designed to be environmentally friendly, the basic device, called VisionAnchor S has a selling price of 800 euros and can then be enriched with additional features, including those capable of collecting environmental data and thus contribute to sea and seabed monitoring activities, then there is the more sophisticated version of the device called VisionAnchor C that also includes a camera and costs 2800 euros. The startup also plans to accelerate its internationalisation process by looking mainly at the US and Australian markets.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ©