By the end of this month, Sea Crowd, a new crowd funding platform specifically dedicated to the sea economy, to innovative nautical projects and to maritime technologies, will be officially launched.
Alongside with the very promising data coming from the industry, there are several cases history of nautical projects which have been successfully funded through crowd-funding.
Among the cases in Italy: Sailogy, a reservation portal for boats, has collected 1,5 million euro in two times; 380 thousand euro have been collected through StarsUp to create a yacht designed by Cantiere di Savona.
As for international successful cases, Boyan Slat collected 2 million dollars on Kickstarter to clean the sea from plastics; BoatBound, a rental portal for boats, collected 2,5 million dollars on OurCrowd; a charter company owning sailing boats collected 1,7 million dollars on Equitynet; BoatSetter, a rental platform for crafts, collected 1,1 million dollars on EarlyShares.
Thus, in general, the growth trend of the whole nautical industry expected at 10% per year for the next three years and the series of past successful cases, already outline a very positive outcome for Sea Crowd.
Sea Crowd, the first platform in Europe exclusively dedicated to the sea will host ideas and projects for the nautical industry, from maritime engineering, to shipbuilding, yachts and brokerage, technology and innovation, water sports and tourism, fishing and protection of the maritime environment.
Augusto Vecchi, Sea-Crowd’s founder, explains that the project will be working as a hybrid platform combining Lending Club and e-Commerce until it gets its registration and authorization to collect funding by Consob: the platform will be offering pre-sale for innovative products. There might also be a section for non-profit donations to support social initiatives concerning the maritime sector.
“We estimate to realize crowd-funding campaigns of a total value of 2 million euro by 2016, 15 million euro by 2017, and 30 million euro in 2018. Sea Crowd will receive the 8% on the capital it will be able to make the project’s proposers obtain. Moreover, it will invoice the required services, from the market analysis and research to the web marketing strategies, to the due diligence and roadshow” Vecchi further explained.
Before launching crowd-funding campaigns, the presented projects will be evaluated by Massimo Terenzani and Aldo Manna, Sea Crowd associates, professionals in the technological and nautical industry, helped by a technical board in which Giuseppe Casalino, University Professor, and Lavinio Gualdesi, an engineer with almost 30 years of experience in managing the NATO research center in La Spezia, will take part.
“A very important role will be given to the Ligurian District of the Maritime Technologies (DLTM), a partner who, thanks to its contacts and its own laboratories of advanced technology, will allow us to analyze and evaluate even the most complex projects” Vecchi continues. The project is aimed above all to support highly innovative projects such as ecological propulsion systems, waste fiberglass disposal, the protection of the fishing industry.
