Seed funding to tackle one of maritime industry’s biggest blind spots
September 30, 2025By Seawork Press FP
Cetasol
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Cetasol, a Swedish start-up developing AI-driven decision support, has secured a seed funding round of €2.3M, bringing in new investors alongside continued support.
The investment enables Cetasol to continue to introduce its AI-driven decision support and digital twin technology solutions for increased insights, reduced costs and GHG emissions.
BackingMinds and Shift4Good join existing investor Sarsia. BackingMinds is a Swedish venture capital investor in industry-agnostic, early-stage tech companies. Shift4Good is an impact venture capital fund focused on the decarbonization of the transportation sector. Sarsia is an early-stage venture capital fund that looks for technologies and founders capable of accelerating the green transition and building sustainable companies for the future.
Shipping is responsible for about 3% of global CO₂ emissions. While innovation and investment have largely focused on electrification and large vessels, small and mid-sized vessels, which make up nearly 90% of the global fleet, offer the fastest and most scalable path to significant climate impact.
Cetasol’s iHelm helps save fuel, track vessel performance, stay compliant, and maximise uptime – with real-time decision support and data-driven insights. The system continuously gathers data directly from both the vessel and Cetasol’s digital twin technology of vessel and engine, enabling real-time recommendations to the captain via edge computing.
Ethan Faghani, CEO and Founder of Cetasol said, “This investment confirms that our approach to AI-driven decision support and maritime sustainability is both needed and trusted. With this support, we are scaling faster and wider — delivering intelligent solutions to maritime operations globally."
Niclas Wijkström, CFO & Investment Director at BackingMinds, said, "Cetasol is tackling one of the maritime industry’s biggest blind spots. While most solutions target the largest vessels, nearly 90% of the global fleet consists of small and medium-sized ships that are underserved and often lack access to affordable optimization tools.”
Matthieu de Chanville, Managing Partner at Shift4Good, said, “Cetasol has developed a solution that delivers measurable impact and ROI from day one — it’s already proven, easy to deploy across a wide range of vessels, and highly relevant for fleet managers. What’s more, the platform lays the groundwork for the future of optimized maritime operations through predictive maintenance — a domain we already know well from our investments in road mobility. We see strong complementarity, both in terms of expertise and market presence, especially in Southeast Asia where we’re very active.”
Jon-Kåre Hansen, Partner at Sarsia, commented, “Cetasol has continued to strengthen its AI-driven fuel saving solution over the last year and is now the clear No.1 provider in the mid-size vessel market. There are a lot of opportunities and a lot of fuel to save. Over the last year the customer base has been growing fast, and Sarsia strongly believes in the team and are happy to continue to support the journey.”
