Around 90 percent of global trade is conducted by sea. In the process, commercial shipping releases enormous amounts of CO2 and other pollutants. For the year 2015, the ICCT reports 932 million tons of CO2 equivalents, which accounted for around 2.6 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions that year. Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions that year, by the way, were 902 million tons of CO2 equivalents.
Cargokite wants to solve this problem – and is relying on wind power. However, not in the form of traditional sails. Instead, the Munich team is developing what is known as an airborne wind energy system, the main component of which is a kite. This is designed to fly at heights between 100 and 300 meters, where there is always sufficient wind to reliably propel the ship.
Cargokite relies on small autonomous ships with kite propulsion
At the same time, Cargokite is also addressing ship design. A newly designed ship hull is intended to enable wind energy to be used more efficiently than ever before and converted directly into forward motion of the ship. However, a Panamax vessel cannot be powered this way – instead, the startup is focusing on smaller autonomous models with a capacity of 16 containers. And since the ships don’t need to carry fuel, they end up being even smaller. This is also intended to make commercial shipping more flexible, since the small ships would no longer be dependent on particularly large ports.
With their concept, Cargokite founders Amelie Binder, Max Perschen, Tim Linnenweber, and Marcus Bischoff have already convinced judges in the first and second rounds of the Munich Business Plan Competition. Now the American venture capital fund SOSV and the Fraunhofer Technology Transfer Fund (FTTF) are joining the startup. However, the size of the pre-seed round was not disclosed. On LinkedIn, Cargokite states:
“This is an important milestone for our rapidly growing company and a signal to the market that wind technologies will play a much larger role in the future of sustainable shipping than is often portrayed. With SOSV and FTTF, we have found two experienced and hardware-focused investors who will accompany us on our technically demanding journey and help us achieve the next milestones.”
