Houston logistics SaaS innovator is making waves with expanded maritime shipping platform

Houston Innovators Podcast episode 243

Matthew Costello, CEO and co-founder of Voyager Portal, joins the Houston Innovators Podcast. Photo courtesy of Voyager

For several years now, Matthew Costello has been navigating the maritime shipping industry looking for problems to solve for customers with his company, Voyager Portal.

Initially, that meant designing a software platform to enhance communications and organization of the many massive and intricate global shipments happening every day. Founded in 2018 by Costello and COO Bret Smart, Voyager Portal became a integral tool for the industry that helps users manage the full lifecycle of their voyages — from planning to delivery.

"The software landscape has changed tremendously in the maritime space. Back in 2018, we were one of a small handful of technology startups in this space," Costello, who serves as CEO of Voyager, says on the Houston Innovators Podcast. "Now that's changed. ... There's really a huge wave of innovation happening in maritime right now."


Riding that wave means continuing to evolve the Voyager platform with new cost-saving, inefficiency-reducing technology. One of the industry's biggest pain points is demurrage — charges associated with delays in loading and unloading cargo within maritime shipping. Costello estimates that the total paid globally in demurrage fees is around $10 billion to $20 billion a year.

"These fees can be huge," Costello says. "What technology has really enabled with this problem of demurrage is helping companies drill down to the true root cause of what something is happening."

All this progress is thanks to the enhancement — and wider range of acceptance — of data analysis and artificial intelligence.

Costello, who says Voyager has been improving its profitability every quarter for the last year, has grown the business to around 40 employees in its headquarters of Houston and three remote offices in Brazil, London, and Singapore. The company's last round of funding was a series A in 2021. Costello says the next round, if needed, would be next year.

In the meantime, Voyager is laser focused on providing optimized, cost-saving, and sustainable solutions for its customers — around half of which are headquartered or have a significant presence in Houston. For Costello, that's all about putting the control back into the hands of his customers.

"If we think back to the real problems the industry faces, a lot of them are controlled by different groups and parties. The fact that a ship cannot get in and out of a port quickly is not necessarily a function of one party's issue — it's a multitude of issues, and there's no one factor," Costello says on the show. "To really make the whole process efficient end-to-end you need to provide the customer to access and options for different means of getting cargo from A to B — and you need to have a sense of control in that process."

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Voyager, a Houston SaaS company, has received fresh funds to develop its bulk shipping software. Tom Fisk/Pexels

Houston software startup closes $1.5 million round as it grows to make bulk shipping more efficient

all aboard

Houston software startup Voyager is making waves in its quest to improve efficiency — and stem billions of dollars in losses — in the maritime bulk-shipping business. Now, it's got some fresh capital to help it achieve that mission.

On August 21, Voyager revealed it secured $1.5 million in seed funding from four investors from around the world: Austin-based ATX Venture Partners, Houston- and California-based Blue Bear Capital, New York City-based GreenHawk Capital, and Oman-based Phaze Ventures. Previous investors include Boulder, Colorado-based Techstars and Spring-based Knightsgate Ventures.

With its software-as-a-service offering, Voyager aims to modernize the workflows of operators in the maritime bulk-commodities industry. The company says its technology will become more vital as autonomous shipping and internet- and Internet of Things-enabled cargo vessels grow in popularity.

Voyager's technology enables all communication tied to a shipment to be handled via its web dashboard and app, essentially creating a one-stop shop for people who need to track messages about maritime bulk shipments.

"Shipping bulk commodities like crude oil, gas, and petrochemicals is still a highly manual and complex process, with $360 billion in ocean freight managed globally by email, phone, fax, and text in a high-volume, fast-paced environment," Matthew Costello, co-founder and CEO of Voyager, says in a release. "Data is decentralized and unstructured, and the process is rife with inefficiencies, lost opportunities, costly human errors and, overarchingly, billions in losses."

One shipment alone generates more than 4,000 emails and hundreds of documents, with at least 10 companies collaborating across several time zones, according to Voyager.

Voyager says the $1.5 million in funding will go toward:

  • Expanding its line of SaaS products.
  • Attracting more customers. This includes a foray into the oil and gas sector.
  • Enlarging its engineering, development, marketing, and sales teams. Voyager currently employs seven people at the company's new office in downtown Houston. Plans call for a 10-member workforce by the end of 2019 and a 20-member workforce by the end of 2020.

Costello and Bret Smart, Voyager's chief operating officer, launched the company in 2018. Both are veterans of the maritime industry, where they conducted a study that found roughly 40 percent of workers' time was spent on simple, low-value tasks like manual data entry. With that research in hand, Costello and Smart — who worked together at Stolt-Nielsen, a London-based provider of liquids transportation and storage that has a Houston office — came up with the Voyager software.

Among Voyager's customers are brokerage, terminal, and agency businesses, as well as ship owners and commodity producers. The company says one of its customers has realized more than $4 million in annual bottom-line savings by switching to Voyager, with another customer pegging its annual savings at $1.5 million.

"As industries move away from email to digital-based communication, Voyager will become a critical system of engagement," Costello says.

Down the road — or, in this case, the shipping channel — Voyager plans to supplement its cloud-based offerings with capabilities like machine learning and analytics.

"Opportunities for innovation in maritime abound, as the need for technological advancements exist in one of the world's biggest industries. Voyager is poised to be the leader in maritime operations," says Chris Shonk, managing partner of ATX Venture Partners.

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New AI program powered by Mark Cuban opens applications for Houston students

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The Mark Cuban Foundation is partnering with digital consultant company Perficient’s Houston office to bring a one-of-its-kind, free artificial intelligence camp to high school students in Houston.

Applications, which are open now online, will close September 30.

“With the proliferation of AI, it’s more important than ever to increase AI education – especially among today’s youth,” Bill Davis, senior vice president at Perficient, says in a news release.

The curriculum will focus on the latest developments in the world of AI and Generative AI. The camp — held at Perficient’s Houston office on November 2, 9 and 16 — will provide students with necessary tools and technologies to help inspire a new generation of AI users and professionals. The camp aims to help underserved high school students with a focus on recruiting students of color, first generation college students, girls, and those from lower to moderate income households.

“As AI continues to become an undeniable force in all of our lives, it’s crucial that we open the door to this knowledge, especially to young people who want to explore it,” Cuban says in the release. “While technology expands and becomes more advanced, it becomes more critical that we ensure our students are prepared when they apply for schools or jobs in the future. Thanks to our work with Perficient, the bootcamp will offer an avenue to explore this fascinating field of technology to any student, no matter their means.”

Students can select from six tracks in the course that include healthcare, arts and entertainment, business and entrepreneurship, computer science, sports science, or education and career readiness. The AI Bootcamps are introductory and accessible to students in ninth through 12th grade with an interest in technology without any prior computer science experience. Transportation, resources and food will be provided.

As classes like STEM increase in popularity more programs have been created to help increase interest. More than 233,000 high school students in Texas took Career and Technical Education courses focused on STEM from 2020-2021.

“We’re proud to partner with the Mark Cuban Foundation to educate the next generation of technology leaders, mentoring students in AI, and ensuring the future of STEM,” Davis said in a news release.

UTSI's advisory board digs into cybersecurity's challenges, trends + tech

From The Board

In today's digital landscape, the convergence of Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT) presents both opportunities and challenges for critical infrastructure asset owners and operators.

UTSI, a leading systems integrator of OT technology, has assembled an OT Cybersecurity Advisory Board to address these challenges and highlight standard processes and best practices to evaluate and secure these environments.

“We are excited about the strength of our esteemed Advisory Board and are confident that these strategic alliances will enhance our competitiveness,” says Shaun Six, president of UTSI International.

A few of the drivers of OT and IT convergence include increased efficiency, enhanced data, and improved remote monitoring and control capabilities. It exists to promote the promise of connectivity, data visualization, and to enable AI and better decision-making.

Key challenges
However, there are challenges. Increased attack surface, legacy systems, and infrastructure, as well as differing security requirements and regulatory and compliance challenges are all present.

“As we witnessed our global infrastructure recover from the largest outage on July 19, this is a clear and present example of how the application of technology between IT/OT can have an impact on the underlying interdependencies in critical systems and infrastructure," says Cherise Esperaza, co-founder and president of Security Gate. "Therefore, there is an ever-increasing need for resources to be expended for this endeavor, and understanding the areas of risk alongside business outcomes as it relates to the convergence will be a critical to ensuring optimal availability of these systems.”

Increased monitoring

When it comes to security monitoring and incident response, it's vital to incorporate new tools to monitor, meeting the same standards as legacy assets and reporting vulnerabilities.

"Continuous monitoring is one of the most critical aspects of securing your IT/OT infrastructure," offers Eric Rippetoe, former CISO of Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and UTSI cybersecurity consultant. "Automated tools coupled with mature processes allow organizations to rapidly detect security threats and enable teams to quickly respond to address issues. Having a security incident and not knowing about it could result in huge remediation costs and major long-term reputational damage."

Emerging technology and trends
With the rise of AI, it makes sense now more than ever to follow the principle of "never trust, always verify." A Zero Trust architecture is a strategic approach to cybersecurity that secures an organization by eliminating implicit trust and continuously validating every stage of a digital interaction.

In line with this approach, UTSI International Corporation, as a Gold Partner of ThreatGEN, has been intensively utilizing ThreatGEN's AutoTableTop™ incident response tabletop exercise simulation tool. This advanced technology is helping UTSI provide meaningful tabletop exercises to their client base, particularly in high-risk SCADA and OT environments.

Clint Bodungen, president of ThreatGEN, emphasizes the tool's significance: "This tool is designed to sharpen incident response capabilities for teams operating in critical SCADA and OT environments. In these high-stakes settings, where system availability is paramount and the consequences of failure can be catastrophic, AutoTableTop™ provides an unparalleled platform for realistic, AI-driven tabletop exercises. It allows teams to practice and refine their responses to a wide range of scenarios, with practically zero planning time required, ensuring they're prepared for the unique challenges posed by industrial control systems where even a minor slip-up could have deadly consequences. This application of advanced simulation technology aligns with the industry's move towards more robust and realistic cybersecurity training, especially in sectors where the stakes are exceptionally high."

In conclusion
The convergence of IT and OT presents significant cybersecurity challenges for critical infrastructure. However, by understanding these challenges and implementing effective strategies, organizations can protect their essential systems from cyber threats.

“Maintaining an accurate inventory of assets poses a significant challenge for companies with control system networks," says Derek Harp, chairman, Control System Cyber Security Association International. "As outlined in our 2024 OT Cybersecurity Technology Report, not only is it difficult to identify these assets, but understanding their communication adds an additional layer of complexity. Typically, companies only gain a snapshot of their OT network status and assets' interactions during periodic assessments. Not surprisingly, our research also indicates that the frequency of these critical evaluations is increasing.”

The role of UTSI's OT Cybersecurity Advisory Board, along with the use of advanced tools like Security Gate and ThreatGEN, is pivotal in navigating this complex landscape. As the threat landscape continues to evolve, proactive measures and ongoing investment in cybersecurity will be crucial to safeguarding our most critical assets.

Play it back: Houston therapeutics co. sees momentum with expanded treatment opportunities

houston innovators podcast Episode 253

It's been a busy summer for Houston-based Coya Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotech company that's creating revolutionary treatments for neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and ALS.

In July, Coya announced that has expanded its collaboration with Houston Methodist Research Institute, or HMRI. The publicly traded company also announced fresh funding from the Johnson Center for Cellular Therapeutics.

Last month, Coya reported that it has expanded its treatment research to see how GLP-1 drugs — a trending drug for weight loss — can enhance the effects of its proprietary therapeutics. By combining the medicines, Howard Berman, co-founder and CEO of Coya Therapeutics, says he thinks Coya can better treat these complex immune-based diseases.

Berman joined the Houston Innovators Podcast in April of 2023 to discuss taking Coya public and his passion for the company's mission.

"I was interested in what I could do for my dad," Berman says on the Houston Innovators Podcast, explaining how he took the meeting with Dr. Stanley Appel, who then presented him with some of his research. "By slide five my jaw had hit the ground.

"He had shown that he could stop the progression in one of his early trials of ALS," Berman says.

Berman shares more of the Coya Therapeutics story on the podcast, as well as how he sees Houston's potential as an emerging hub for biotech.

"The next number of years as we develop this therapeutic regimen for ALS, we have the potential to transform Houston into something more than it is currently," he says. "Our success will be the city's success."

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