Elizabeth Chan, chief executive of Chinese startup Neptune Robotics, knows a thing or two about leading a rapidly growing business in a highly competitive market.
There are about a dozen hull-cleaning companies like hers looking to win permits to work in busy ports with robots rather than divers.
The firm claims to have 30 autonomous robots in service based in five operations centres, which cover 60 ports along China’s coastline.
This scale has largely been achieved through $17.2m in series A investments the company secured two years ago.
Backers included Sequoia China, a division of Sequoia Capital, the US-based venture capital giant that was one of the first investors in Apple and Google, as well as WhatsApp and Shein.
Now Chan is eyeing further expansion.
The company recently added Singapore as a service port and is planning a westward expansion and developing systems for autonomous propeller polishing.
For that, they will be looking at raising funds through another investment round, possibly three times the value of the first, according to Chan.
“We are not burning cash,” she said, claiming to already work on a profit, have good cost management and an effective supply chain.
“Our clients need scale and to be a major supplier you need to cover enough ports,” she added.
For the expansion, she has her eyes on the Middle East and South America, both without too much competition from rivals, according to Chan.
Chan is energetic when talking about the company, its direction and achievements.
She has the drive and passion one would expect of an entrepreneur.
Chan and her two co-founders, chief technology officer Jacky Im and chief operations officer Kate Ma, came together during a UK-based robotics start-up competition.
I had invented an aquatic robot that could leap out of the water, which inspired the forging of Neptune Robotics.
Robotic cleaning is, Chan and her competitors such as ECOsubsea founder Tor Ostervold agree, faster and safer than using divers.
But there the agreement ends.
Hull cleaning firms all differ, and the claims on the benefits of each make for complex reading.
But according to Chan, Neptune has three unique advantages over its competitors.
One unique selling point, said Chan, is the ability to work above the waterline to clean exposed hull as well as the submerged parts, which she said becomes important on large bulk vessels discharging quickly.
Another is the ability to work in ports with currents of up to 4 knots, which is due to the strong magnetic tracks on the robots.
The third is the ability to work fully in muddy water, and this is where the artificial intelligence ensures a full clean even when the robots’ high-resolution cameras can no longer capture clear images.
For Chan, this is the key differentiator, with the use of algorithms and AI allowing the system to offer advice to a remote operator when there is zero visibility.
The company has plans of the most common hull forms on record and where possible gets more detailed drawings from shipowners to help the algorithms feed information to the AI which then advises the operator, she said.
One thing that Neptune Robotics does not do is collect the waste from a ship’s hull.
It is not necessary in China’s ports nor currently in Singapore, according to Chan.
However, she acknowledges that owners and ports want or mandate the collection and safe disposal of any hull-cleaning waste to prevent the spread of invasive species, so Neptune is planning to make that service available.
