Zero Emission Ocean Transportation
Welcome to CargoKite, where engineering excellence meets innovation
We are a tech startup from Munich reinventing how goods are transported across the ocean.
Since our inception in 2020, we have been dedicated to pioneering groundbreaking technology solutions for the future of transport and logistics. Spun out of the Technical University of Munich as one of the world-leading institutions for robotics and automation, our team combines German engineering tradition with the fast development cycles of a startup.
More about usOcean shipping is the cheapest way to transport goods, but...
…not reliable due to a lack of resilience
One single incident such as a ship getting stuck in the Suez Canal or a labor strike in a port shuts down major parts of global shipping, leads to massive congestion and ultimately causes damages in the billions in just a few days.
…not sustainable
Ships run on heavy fuel oil, the dirtiest fuel in the world, making global shipping responsible for nearly 1 Gigatonne of CO2 emissions per year. That's more than all of Germany combined.
…only for standard routes
Ultra-Large Vessels with more than 15.000 containers are very cost - efficient, but only 5% of ports have sufficient infrastructure for such vessels. On every other route, small, less cost efficient ships are in use, leading up to twice as high transport costs.
…not customer-oriented
Having to serve thousands of customers with a single ship makes individualized routing and just-in-time delivery impossible for shipping companies, forcing cargo owners to keep expensive inventory.
…slow
98% of ports are not directly connected. Time intensive stops and transshipments add unnecessary transportation time.
Our sustainable answer are autonomous micro ships
We are developing the sailing ship of the 21st century. Our innovative ship concept utilizes wind energy as its mean efficiency that has never been seen before.
Decentralized
trade
Better use of existing infrastructure with point to point connections between even the smallest ports in the world avoids bottlenecks in large ports and makes sure that any incident causes minimal disruption.
Individualized
service
Micro ships enable a taxi-like service for cargo to replace today's fixed schedules: any route, on-demand, fully traceable and just-in-time for cargo owners of every size, from startup to corporate.
Direct
transport
1.5x higher operation speed, no unnecessary stops, no transshipments to enable up to 40% time savings compared to today's transport times.
Emission-free
propulsion concept
We only rely on clean and free wind energy to propel our newly designed ship without forcing our customers to compromise on transportation cost.
Shifting the paradigm from large inflexible freight ships
to small autonomous micro ships
for the benefit of the $400 billion ocean shipping industry.
Our new ship class is the cheapest way to fully decarbonize commercial freight shipping
Emission-free
during operation
Up to 70%
lower operating cost
16 containers
capacity
Autonomous operation
No fueling or charging infrastructure needed
Patented Technology
Our ship design with its unique combination of components and our control algorithms as magic glue for the components are first of its kind.
Unlimited market opportunity
The CargoKite technology knows no geographical limit and no limit to container shipping. From island transport in Indonesia to bulker shipping in the North Sea, many market segments can be opened up with one technology.
Massive Scalability
We aim to bring economies of scale to the production of ships. Inspired by the highly automated production lines of the automotive industry, we want to transform shipbuilding from single designs to mass production of identical ships.
Investors
4 upcoming investors
Quick answers to questions you may have
Contact us here:
No. Our ships are built after our own design, but we cooperate with ship yards for the manufacturing of the ship. Our core IP is control and intelligence software.
The kite operates at ~300m and harvests so-called high altitude winds. High altitude winds are much stronger and more constant than winds near the ground and have a 95% probability of occurrence offshore globally. Additionally, we analyze weather data systematically and use our own route planning tool to calculate the optimal route for our ships and thereby avoid areas with no wind. As last fallback option there is still a battery and electric motor.
No, we are still in development. We will start accepting pre-orders for ships in Q3/2024.
Want to know exact numbers? Reach out to our team for a free initial consulting.