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SailTimer

  • 3 days ago
  • 5 min read

More accurate marine weather data from crowdsourced measurements.

Mission

SailTimer’s crowdsourcing platform models wind flow in coastal areas from over 110-million data points from users. We are now extending the platform offshore, to help ships reduce fuel costs and greenhouse gas emissions.

Problem

Satellite weather is unreliable. That is the first problem; the satellites are from 500 to 22,000 miles up in space, and try to estimate weather with satellite imaging. The second problem is that ship captains don’t trust the marine weather forecast, so often don’t use voyage optimization calculations.


Solution

We unlock the actual measurements of wind and sea state that vessels are already measuring for their own navigation, to provide data that is accurate. Our more accurate data and visualizations also increase trust, allowing voyage optimization and routing to be used more. Even the best voyage optimization software in the world is only as good as the data it uses.


4. Market Opportunity

Market size:

  • B2B: Voyage optimization for ships with more accurate data saves at least 3% of fuel costs. Cargo ships on average spend over $3-million per year on fuel, which is $154-billion per year in spending across all ships. Our data therefore has a value of $4.7-billion per year in fuel cost savings.

  • B2C: Our second target market is boating apps for marine weather and navigation, where we already have traction selling wireless electronics, and over 200,000 downloads of our app. We estimate a Total Addressable Market of 6.5-million app users for in-app subscriptions to our innovative weather animations, which is a market size of $49-million per year in recurring subscription revenue.

Target customers:

  • B2B: We have partnerships with 2 companies providing voyage optimization services for ships, and are working to make our crowdsourced marine weather available to more voyage optimization companies.

  • B2C: We sell our in-app subscriptions to innovative marine weather animations in the SailTimer app, but also have an SDK to allow other apps to sell our subscriptions to a much larger audience of their own users.



Go-to-Market Strategy

SailTimer began in consumer markets with navigation software and then electronics. We have over 111-million data points crowdsourced from users, which we use to model wind flow in coastal areas. We will continue to sell in-app subscriptions in that B2C market, which is the Demand side. On the Supply side, we also manufacture and sell innovative wind sensors and related marine electronics, which allows us to receive crowdsourced wind data from our own and any other brand of wind sensor. For every 1 electronics device we sell, there may be 250 app users who want to subscribe to the data from it.

In the B2B space with more accurate marine weather for ships, all ship and port staff use free apps. The ship industry is conservative and somewhat monopolized, but to our surprise, that is where our product-market fit is. Our free app opens doors with ship and voyage optimization companies.


Exit Strategy

Many of the large ship conglomerates that we have talked to about licensing our more accurate marine weather data are doing acquisitions, as the technology and industry evolve. Although we are pursuing equity investment from VC firms, it is likely that one of those large ship conglomerates would rather acquire our technology and company exclusively, rather than license it.


Traction

Partnerships with ship voyage optimization and routing companies:

  • SailTimer Partners with Amphitrite: How AI Forecasts and Crowdsourcing are Changing Marine Weather (PDF). Press Release, Jan. 14, 2026.

  • Announcement on Weathernews Inc. (WNI) partnering with SailTimer to bring their forecast models from ships to recreational boaters in the SailTimer app. June 24, 2025.

 

Documentation on the advantages of more accurate marine weather for ship voyage optimization:

  • A New Era of Maritime Wind Forecasting. ECO Magazine - Environment, Coastal & Offshore, Summer 2025. LinkedIn. Quote: "...The GRIB satellite forecast is shockingly inaccurate when compared to measurements from ships offshore. The mean absolute error in forecasted wind directions is +/-35.4 degrees (a range of 70 degrees!)".

  • Crowdsourcing Weather Data to Verify Satellites for Voyage Optimization. Sea Technology, May 6, 2025.

 

Established brand

SailTimer has an established brand in the consumer boating community worldwide.

  • We have received over 111-million data points from users worldwide, for modelling wind flow in coastal areas.

  • Over 30,000 subscribers to the SailTimer monthly newsletter.

  • Over 200,000 downloads of the SailTimer boating app on iOS and Android.

  • 20+ apps license our Bluetooth data.

  • We have a new SDK with our innovative marine weather animations that is being integrated into 5 third-party apps now, with more to follow.


For crowdsourcing with ships, we have a prototype demonstrating that we can receive wind data from 2,500 ships per hour in public data sources. We also have developed a prototype visualization method called Red-Green Maps™ to help ships use that data to reduce fuel costs and greenhouse gas emissions.



Business Model

Traditionally our revenue model was based on sales of the electronics we manufacture. But because those can send data to our cloud database, the crowdsourced data has become a much larger revenue opportunity. There are 2 markets: in-app subscriptions (B2C) and licensing for ship voyage optimization (B2B).

We have a frugal operation. There are some manufacturing costs to continue to make electronics that can provide our data supply — but we have redesigned our electronics to make that very cost-effective. The in-app subscriptions and data licensing is all developed now, and scales automatically.

We also have government R&D funding every year, to help to continue to add new features and innovations.


Financials

We have revenue as a small business selling marine electronics in consumer markets (averaging about $200,000 US annually including government R&D funding).

But the company now scaling up to commercialize our crowdsourced data in the much larger ship voyage optimization market (B2B) and with in-app subscriptions (B2C). We have projections for those, but it is still early so the Total Addressable Markets are a clearer indicator than speculation of the financial projections and market opportunity.


Team

Management:

  • Craig Summers, PhD. Halifax, NS, Canada. Founder & CTO. IPO with previous startup. LinkedIn.

  • Vikas Tuteja, MBA. Los Angeles, CA, USA. Strategic Advisor. Harvard Business School, McKinsey, Ford Motor Co., renewable energy & carbon capture startups. LinkedIn.

  • Lindsey Rogerson, MBA. Victoria, BC, Canada. Manager of Marketing & Investor Relations (fractional). Lived in Japan for 7 years. LinkedIn.


Developers:

We have a team of developers for apps, cloud database, firmware and circuit boards. Our senior developers have been with SailTimer for more than 10 years. We have a contract factory that knows our electronics well and has produced our Wind Instrument for over 10 years.


Stock Options:

We have a stock option pool for staff after their probationary period, and also stock option incentives for senior staff.


Funding

SailTimer Inc. is privately held and has not taken on equity investment. We wanted to make sure we had mature products and happy customers. We do have that now, and large new market opportunities for scaling our in-app subscriptions, and for licensing our data to help ships reduce fuel costs and emissions. We are now in an accelerator and beginning a fund raise, to allow us to expand faster.

The company has had extensive government R&D funding over the years. For example, SailTimer was the lead in an 8-company consortium with a $1.8-million (Cdn) project from Canada’s Ocean Supercluster (announcement).


Contact Information

Founder and CTO:  Craig Summers, PhD.  LinkedIn

Company Website: https://SailTimer.co  LinkedIn


This article was written by a third-party business or organisation. marinn.ai has not conducted due diligence on the company or organisation. This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or a solicitation.

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