People behind the work
Experience, conviction and a long-term commitment to maritime.
“Few realize the profound impact maritime digital transition can have on humanity.”
Chye Poh is the founder and General Partner of ShipsFocus. He is a serial entrepreneur and investor with over 40 years of experience in maritime commerce. For the past decade, he has focused on innovations in the maritime supply chain. Recognized for his expertise, he was part of the MPA’s IMC 2030 Advisory Committee.
With a keen eye for emerging trends and a track record of successful ventures, he continues to drive innovation in the global maritime arena. Outside of his professional life, Chye Poh has green fingers and enjoys nurturing both companies and his plants.
“If a great journey starts with the first step, let it begin at the operations.”
James has over 20 years of experience in system development both in maritime shipping and venture building. He combines both deep operational understanding and astute commercial grasp with his technical know-how and domain expertise to deliver new and disruptive systems that capture great values in maritime commerce.
James graduated with a double degree in mechanical and computer engineering and is ShipsFocus’ star ping-pong player during lunch hour!
“I enjoy nurturing early-stage businesses and reaping substantial long-term returns.”
Ronan is our Investment Advisor and an essential part of the Investment Committee at ShipsFocus. He has a wealth of experience with an unbeatable track record in public market investing and medtech investments, always adding unique perspectives and valuable insights to our investment selection and decision-making process.
Ronan graduated with a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery, and a Doctor of Philosophy from Oxford.
“A decade at sea and another decade in the services taught me exactly where the friction lives—and how to help our founders cut straight through it.”
Sriram bridges decades of heavy maritime operations with sophisticated quantitative strategy. With over 20 years of sector experience, his career is evenly split between a decade at sea as a Marine Engineer and another decade serving as a Marine Technical & Commercial Head across global hubs like Houston, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
His deep sector expertise is matched by a strong technical mind for fintech; he has built two digital platforms and engineered proprietary ETF and stock management algorithms. As our Commercial Catalyst, his transition from a marine engineer at sea to a commercial head across global hubs gives our portfolio companies a tactical edge in navigating, selling to, and conquering international markets.
“Companies don't scale on capital alone—they scale on people. I make sure our founders have both.”
Jessica brings 30+ years of deep operational and talent-building experience to the fund, acting as a crucial launchpad for early-stage maritime startups.
She provides hands-on, end-to-end operational and administrative support for the ShipsFocus portfolio, guiding founders through the whole journey from corporate entity setup to sourcing and hiring their first key talents. She ensures that young companies have the structural and human foundations required to attract capital and grow.
A dedicated community mentor, she has served as a Children's Ministry mentor at Wesley Methodist Church since 2005.
“My job is simple: make sure our LPs trust us, and our founders never doubt we're in their corner.”
Thao is the central point of fund operations, working alongside founders to track portfolio health, milestones, and operational challenges, while delivering clear, honest reporting to our LPs. Actively on the ground scouting the next wave of maritime innovation, she leverages her unique Southeast Asian lens to spot high-potential startups before they break through.
Her investment instincts are backed by a rigorous, seven-year academic foundation in the discipline—a Diploma in Maritime Business from Singapore Polytechnic and a B.Sc. in Maritime Studies from Nanyang Technological University (NTU).
What we look for
We look for market wedges where maritime complexity can become operational leverage, not just incremental software.
Incremental software makes a process 10% faster. Operational leverage rewires how the entire workflow functions, creating network effects, data moats, and pricing power.
We look for teams that have identified a specific, painful wedge in the maritime workflow, a single point of friction where the industry has normalized inefficiency, and built a solution that, once adopted, becomes impossible to remove.
That wedge could be
- 01Port call optimization that saves hours per vessel
- 02New business value distributed via the long tail of MSMEs
- 03Predictive maintenance that catches failures before they happen
- 04Trade finance automation that unlocks working capital
- 05Emissions tracking that turns compliance into a commercial advantage
From that wedge, we help founders expand into adjacent workflows. Not just to build a broader platform, but to unlock new business models that don’t exist today. Because the real value isn’t just in doing more of the same, it’s in reimagining how value is created, captured, and shared across the supply chain.
We back founders who see beyond the wedge, to the platform, the network, and the new commercial model that emerges when operational leverage is fully realized.
What leads to a “Yes”
We invest in founders who understand the industry from inside the workflow, but can build beyond today’s constraints. Strong teams show customer urgency, technical leverage, and the ability to turn narrow maritime wedges into scalable infrastructure.
Our “Yes” framework is built on four pillars
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Insider insight, outsider ambition
We back founders who have lived the problem, former officers, port operators, freight forwarders, or engineers, but who refuse to accept that “this is just how it works.” They respect the domain, but they’re not captive to it. And outsiders who have greatly proven technology that can mobilize the maritime network of networks disruptively and change how maritime works.
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Customer urgency
We ask: are customers actively looking for a solution, or do we need to convince them they have a problem? The strongest signals are pre-existing budget, regulatory tailwinds, or operational pain that costs real money daily.
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Technical leverage
Is the solution defensible? Does it generate proprietary data? Does it create network multipliers and capture value for each usage? We look for companies where the technology gets stronger with scale, not weaker.
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Scalable infrastructure thesis
The wedge must be narrow enough to enter, but broad enough to expand. We ask: if this company owns this workflow, what adjacent workflows become accessible? Where does the platform go next?
From first wedge to global scale
We support founders with maritime context, customer access, product judgment, capital strategy, and the industry relationships required to move from pilot signal to durable adoption.
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Maritime domain judgement
Reading which workflows will actually adopt, and which will stall at pilot.
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Customer access
Introductions into operators, ports, and owners. You build the relationships.
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Product and workflow design
Shaping the product around how the work is really done on the ground.
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Follow-on capital strategy
Sequencing the raise around maritime’s longer sales and asset cycles.
For founders, investors and ecosystem partners who share our conviction.