Hello Ocean Friends,

This week is a special interview with the totally awesome Gabbi Richardson from Yachting Ventures. I love Gabbi’s ability to look at a niche and build value there. Read below for more about the leisure marine market.

A new conference showed up on my radar this week. Ocean Floor Explore. It looks pretty cool from the outside, but I haven’t been. Anyone know much about it?

Best,
Will

People-to-know: Gabbriella Richardson, Founder at Yachting Ventures

Editors Note: Gabbi is British and speaks with an accent. The interview sounds cooler to an American ear if you read her part with a UK accent - use your imagination.

Will: Hi, Gabbi. Good seeing you. Thanks for taking the time. Let’s start here: tell me, who are you, and what's your organization?

Gabbi: My name is Gabbi Richardson, and I am the founder of Yachting Ventures. We work with startups specifically in the leisure marine space, helping them to grow and increase their visibility, including raising funding through marketing, support, events, and a community subscription.

I'm the founder of YV, and my background is working at VC-backed startups in London. Having grown up in Mallorca and been surrounded by the yachting industry since I was a child, I always understood the lack of innovation in the space. This is the reason for launching Yachting Ventures as a dedicated hub and community for Leisure Marine. Because there's a lot of activity in the blue economy space, in the commercial maritime space, but there has traditionally been a gap in this leisure space, which has a lot of crossover with both blue economy and commercial. But it's very much its own niche with its own nuances, its own events, its own ecosystem, which is where we're stepping in to support.

Will: That's awesome. So I love you finding this niche in the universe that you're focused on. I love that. For those who are reading, who aren't familiar with the term Leisure Marine, what specifically are you talking about? What form of technology or startup?

Gabbi: So anything that people do on the water for recreational purposes. It could be anything from a new anchor technology to a wakeboard or a water toy, all the way through to a B2B platform on a super yacht for crew management. As much as Leisure Marine sounds niche, it actually encompasses quite a broad spectrum of activities that occur on the water.

Will: YV is very much about community. When a startup comes to you to join that community, what's the value prop for that startup?

Gabbi: It's three pillars: promotion, networking, and education. On the promotional side, they can attend our events. We collaborate with a number of boat shows, such as Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Palma, Metstrade, IBEX and others. We take spaces and build startup pavilions. Once a startup is a member of our  community, they can exhibit with us at those events. They can also attend our networking drinks, pitch competitions and other networking events that we do at those shows. 

Also, throughout the year, we're building our following. We've been really prioritizing that through our content and our newsletters. We now have over 20,000 followers across social and newsletters. Founders get promoted to that audience, which is very niche: investors, startup founders, yacht crew, consumers and B2B players interested in tech. Members can share press releases and general updates that we then promote through the platform. 

Then we do quite a lot of educational content, so we'll do fireside chats and masterclasses over the course of the month. And training programs like fundraising boot camps, usually about once a quarter.

On the networking side, that means targeted introductions to investors at the events we’re hosting. Introductions to potential advisors, potential clients, and partners. 

We've changed the model over the course of the lifespan of Yachting Ventures to make it more focused on things like brand promotion, brand building and marketing. So it's very much for startups that have a product and are ready to go to market and scale. It's not for startups that are at an earlier stage and still building and in ideation. We've leaned into the promotional side because we found that's where the founders see the most value; a lot of them are technical and and when it comes to selling it and marketing their products, they are not as fluent in the language or process of that side.

A lot of them are raising funding and building traction, driving initial sales, partnerships, etc. is such a crucial part of securing investment. We're aiming to help them in that respect so that they can achieve their goals.

Will: I've run incubator programs, I always had my “success founder,” I like to brag about. You don't want to pick favorites, but some tell the story better. What is a good startup use case you can brag about?

Gabbi: A couple of the companies that we’ve supported have been acquired, and a large amount have raised funding. I'm just always hesitant to attribute it too much toYV. Do you know what I mean? 

(Editor’s Note: It is really refreshing to talk with someone with a not-Silicon-Valley ego.)

I can definitely talk about Navier, the electric hydrofoiling boat. They went through our program. We made a number of intros for them, including an awesome designer who is still working with the company today.

We've just been working with a Canadian electric hydrofoiling boat startup called ENVGO that just announced a US $2M funding round. We worked closely with the ENVGO team to support their fundraising efforts over the past 8 months with strategic comms and content and the results speak for themselves. We were excited about working with ENVGO  because the team is really strong, hey're all exited founders and the product is swanky.

Will: You sit in an interesting place. I am very climate-driven and although that is part of Yachting Ventures, it is not the only focus. On a pure technology level, what do you get really excited about?

Gabbi: The alternative fuel solution technologies. I think we all know that super yachts, in particular, are very polluting, and they burn diesel. When we talk about conservation and climate technology, that is a huge problem. The leisure marine industry gets a bad rep because of it. 

I think in order for the industry to be a sustainable and long-lasting vertical, these alternative fuel solutions - electric, hydrogen, or whatever the up-and-coming ones are, and the battery technologies - are the most interesting because the industry depends on these. A new app to book a marina isn't going to change the world. Finding new ways to power the boats so that we can carry on doing this into the future is more important.

Will: If you could look into a crystal ball and look at Yachting Ventures in the next 5, 10, or 15 years, what does that look like?

Gabbi: From a certain perspective, it's a lifestyle business. I get to live in Mallorca, a beautiful island. And I get to travel a lot. I hang out with entrepreneurs on the water doing cool things. I'm really enjoying this. 

We're just going to continue growing and focusing on expanding the event collaborations, because that's what we're seeing the founders find a lot of value in. To exhibit at a boat show is so expensive. And it is a lot of work you need to do yourself.

When they come with us, it's a turnkey solution and much cheaper. Founders also benefit from all the promotion and marketing that we do on our channels.

Will: Anything new that you haven't built at all that you'd love to try.

Gabbi: There have been a number of conversations around raising a fund. I do like the idea of doing that when the time is right. I'm also hesitant about doing it because I know what it implies, being answerable to your LPs, and the heaviness of that. But I think it could be a cool challenge, and obviously it could provide good financial returns. So there is the possibility to do that if the stars align.

Will: What is your ask for my BlueX audience (Editor’s Note: it isn’t nearly as big as YV’s audience) who are reading this interview? Who are you looking for? What are you looking for?

Gabbi: There's a lot of crossover between the blue economy, the climate tech, and leisure marine. So for any startups that are maybe struggling to get traction in those spaces, the leisure marine industry is generally quite affluent. I would encourage startups to explore the space for go-to-market and for initial validation. Get in touch with us so we can help get in front of the right audience. Come to boat shows with us and just start exploring leisure marine and the opportunities that are there. It's more of a CTA for startups. Any startups that think their product could have application in the leisure Marine just space, just a CTA to to get in touch with us and start exploring.

You can ready more about Yachting Ventures on their website. And reach out to Gabbi directly at [email protected].

OceanTech Fundings

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🐡 Aquapulse, an Indian aquaculture startup raised an institutional round. | https://weareaquaculture.com/news/aquaculture/indian-aquaculture-startup-secures-funding-for-sustainable-expansion 

🚢 Nautica Technologies, a maritime hull maintenance firm, raised $4M from b2venture, with Partners in Clime, Prequel Ventures and others. | More from Tech.eu

🪸 Ocean ecosystem restoration company, Ocean Ecostructures, closed €3M in a Series A to expand its operations. | More from We Are Aquaculture

💧 Delft-based rainwater full use company, FieldFactors, raised €1.6M led by Dutch impact investor Connect the Drops, with Tailwind Climate, Amplifica Capital, Vanzal Limited, and the Water Innovaiton Fund. | More from Silicon Canals

🐚 Silkworm biotech startup for aquaculture, Loopworm, raised $3.25M in Pre-Series A funding. | More from The Fish Site

⚡️ Wave energy company, Seaturns, raised €2.45M through a crowdsourcing campaign. | More from World Energy

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