Maritime tech start-up Tilla has closed a EUR2 million funding round to expand its crewing logistics platform.

The latest round of funding for Berlin-headquartered Tilla was led by Singapore-based maritime venture capital fund Motion Ventures and included a strategic investment by Belgian shipping company Exmar owned by the Saverys family.

The new round of funding brings Tilla’s total to EUR4 million since 2021. With the latest funding Tilla plans to expand into the Mediterranean and Asia – Pacific markets and rapidly scale up its team.

“The involvement of Motion Ventures and Exmar provides more than just financial support: Their deep maritime expertise and global networks are a key asset, reinforcing Tilla’s credibility and market position as it aims to become the world’s leading end-to-end platform for crew change management,” Tilla said.

Tilla aims to modernise and digitise the crew change process which it estimates costs the industry $12 billion annually and remains a largely manual process.

Niklas Weidmann, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Tilla, said “Our ambition is to become the global market leader and ultimately optimise every step of every crew change, everywhere in the world. The funding will help us get there.

The start-up claims that by using its AI-powered platform ship managers can reduce costs by up to 24% and time savings of 40%.

To date Tilla has facilitated more than 35,000 crew trips and clients include Peter Döhle Schiffahrts-KG, Essberger, Stödig Shipmanagement, Wilson, Exmar, and Seatrade.

Ariane Saverys, Deputy Chief Operating Officer of new investor Exmar, commented: “After integrating Tilla’s platform into our own operations, we were impressed by its impact and the team’s expertise. Investing in Tilla reflects our confidence in their future and the value they bring to maritime crew logistics worldwide.”