By Christian Berthelsen
An investor consortium including one of Asia's richest
businessmen and a former chief executive of Thomson Reuters Corp.
has taken a stake in Windward, valuing the ship-tracking startup at
about $100 million.
Among new investors in the Tel Aviv firm are Li Ka-shing's
Horizons Ventures and Angelic Ventures, the family office of former
Thomson Reuters CEO Thomas Glocer. The $10.8 million investment for
a roughly 10% stake follows previous funding rounds in 2011 and
2013.
Windward takes information about movements of ships around the
world and uses a database of historical voyages to predict patterns
of global trade and highlight unusual movements.
The company, which was founded by two former officers of the
Israeli Navy, says it will use the proceeds to launch a product
that caters to Wall Street. Big banks, hedge funds and
commodity-trading firms use information about seaborne commodity
shipments to make bets on prices in raw-materials markets, such as
oil and iron ore. Shifts in supply-and-demand trends often ripple
through financial markets.
The company has already been offering its technology to clients
in the security, intelligence and law-enforcement sectors.
Windward's competitors include Bloomberg LP and Reuters.
Mr. Ka-shing made his fortune in an array of industries ranging
from ports and shipping to plastics and retail. Horizons is known
for prior investments in companies including Skype, Spotify AB and
Facebook Inc. Angelic Ventures has invested in financial-technology
and data-analysis companies such as Bitcoin payment provider
Coinbase Inc.
Horizons Ventures will take a seat on Windward's board. Mr.
Glocer will join the company's advisory board.
"Anyone can get a New York Stock Exchange quote," Mr. Glocer
said. "The hard stuff to get are these deep-in-the-weeds data."
Write to Christian Berthelsen at
christian.berthelsen@wsj.com
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