News / 2020 will be a better year for investment in maritime and logistics start-ups

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Venture capital investment in the maritime sector was dominated last year by the enormous $1bn raised by US digital-first freight forwarder Flexport, but the deal masked an overall decline in investment in maritime start-ups.

According to new research from consultancy Thetius, $1.14bn was raised by start-ups last year, but without the Flexport $1bn, led by Japanese investor SoftBank, the remaining $144m represented a 24% decline on the $190m raised in 2018.

Thetius said: “It is impossible to ignore the scale of Softbank’s ...