Zeronorth booked a deficit in 2021 after a year characterized by large investments. This year, the company intends to further expand business by employing a large number of personnel, explains CEO to WPO.
Throughout 2021, digital company Zeronorth launched a marked expansion of its business, and this year, the plan is to grow even further, not least by attracting new employees.
Zeronorth deals in helping customers reduce their fuel consumption and the carbon footprint from their vessels through the solution Optimise, which uses data to make ship operations more efficient.
We have increased the pace, and in general, we are ahead
SØREN CHRISTIAN MEYER, CEO, ZERONORTH
Today, the company’s products are in use on 2,700 ships. The goal for 2021 was 2,000 to 2,500 vessels. Previously, Zeronorth has stated that the target is to increase the number to 6,000 ships ”within the next five years.” According to CEO Søren Christian Meyer, this ambition is still realistic.
”We have increased the pace, and in general, we are ahead, just as we are more employees now. Therefore, our goal is realistic,” he says in an interview with WPO, adding that Zeronorth throughout the year’s first quarter has hired more staff than they did in the entire 2021.
To invest even more
Zeronorth originates from Maersk Tankers, which founded the company in 2020. In September that same year, Cargill joined as co-owner.
However, since the summer 2021, it is Maersk Tankers’ owner, A.P. Moller Holding, which has taken over ownership together with Cargill.
In 2021, the deficit doubled to USD 8.1m from a deficit of USD 4m the previous year. However, last year, revenue soared to USD 3.1m compared to USD 611,000 in 2020, according to the just published annual report.
And according to Meyer, all the money brought in through the revenue have to be reinvested in the company at the same time as a significant extra portion has to be added.
We will invest even more this year than we did last year
SØREN CHRISTIAN MEYER, CEO, ZERONORTH
”Focus for the year [2022, -ed.] is to keep growing. We will invest even more this year than we did last year,” he says.
More specifically, Zeronorth has an ambition to increase the number of employees, currently at 125, to 200 before the end of the year.
This means that the company has to bring in new capital. How much, Meyer can’t say.
Acquisitions
In the course of the last year, Zeronorth has been busy expanding, and within a period of six months, the company performed two acquisitions. The most recent was US bunker platform Clearlynx, announced in the beginning of the year. Prior to that, Zeronorth had bought Copenhagen-based Propulsion Dynamics.
”The strategic acquisitions we have completed have meant that our platform has become more complete and have as such been part of our work optimizing operation of the customers’ ships,” states Meyer.
Zeronorth is an independent company with a broad customer portfolio. Only around 25 percent of the ships using Zeronorth’s products come from Maersk Tankers or Cargill, according to the chief exec.
