Voyager Portal

Voyager Portal develops a software platform for commodity charterers, traders, brokers and manufacturers that manage bulk shipping, covering the voyage lifecycle from pre-fixture planning through post-fixture operations and demurrage claim settlement. The product replaces email threads and spreadsheets with a single workflow system, and is aimed at wet, dry and chemical bulk cargoes across oil and gas, chemicals, agriculture, mining and project cargo sectors.

Platform modules span pre-fixture demand planning, ETA tracking and noon reporting, and freight RFQ workflows; post-fixture vessel nominations and clearances, surveyor and agency appointments, and contract capture and cost management; demurrage management including an AI statement-of-facts processor, automated laytime calculations, and settlements and negotiations; and data and analytics such as customizable dashboards, emissions reporting and port call insights. The system also offers cargo allocation against broker and owner positions, integrated AIS vessel tracking with delay alerts, and connectors to customers' ERP, CTRM or accounting systems. Workflows can be selected from a standard library or tailored to a customer's own nomination, vetting and reporting routines.

The company positions demurrage and claims automation as its principal growth area, and is working toward fuller automation of the voyage and demurrage lifecycle, including AI extraction of structured data from charter party contracts and voyage documents and real-time voyage planning optimization.

Founding story

The founders, Matthew Costello and Bret Smart, met in the maritime industry at Stolt-Nielsen. Costello began his career in Beijing before joining Stolt-Nielsen in Singapore in chartering, operations and demurrage roles, then left in 2016 for an MBA at IMD Business School in Lausanne; he also holds a BA in Finance and Economics from UTS, Sydney. Smart studied naval architecture and transportation at Webb Institute and MIT, began at SeaRiver (ExxonMobil), joined Stolt-Nielsen in finance, strategy and IT integration roles, took an MBA at INSEAD in 2014 and worked at Partners in Performance before joining Costello in Lausanne, where the two started the research that led to Voyager. An MBA program kickstarted the initial idea, motivated by the founders' frustration with long-standing manual processes in maritime chartering.

Business model

Voyager sells a software platform to enterprise charterers, commodity traders, brokers and manufacturers, with demonstrations booked through its website and workflows configurable to customer processes.

Traction

At the time of its December 2021 Series A the company said it had surpassed $1 billion in freight managed on the platform, with customers among manufacturers, traders and shippers in renewable energy, commodity trading, mining and petrochemicals. The company cites customer outcomes of more than 50% reduction in claim processing time, over 30 hours saved per analyst per week, and more than 5% demurrage reduction.

Latest developments

In July 2025 Voyager announced strategic funding from Motion Ventures to accelerate development of its AI-powered platform and expand engineering, sales and customer experience teams in Singapore, the UK and Brazil, with a roadmap focused on freight and demurrage cost forecasting and optimization, AI extraction from charter party contracts and voyage documents, and real-time voyage planning optimization. Subsequent product updates to the claims and voyage management modules were published in October 2025, and a further product release was announced in August 2026.