Sweden’s Cetasol secures €2.3M to scale AI-driven maritime solutions

Gothenburg, Sweden-based Cetasol, a company specialised in AI-driven solutions that transform vessel operations, has secured €2.3M in a seed funding round.

The round was co-led by BackingMinds and Shift4Good, with participation from existing investor Sarsia.

BackingMinds is a Swedish venture capital investor that finds and backs high-performing founders outside the networks of traditional venture capital.

Niclas Wijkström, CFO & Investment Director at BackingMinds, says, “Cetasol is tackling one of the maritime industry’s biggest blind spots. While most solutions target the largest vessels, nearly 90% of the global fleet consists of small- and medium-sized ships that are underserved and often lack access to affordable optimisation tools. By combining edge computing with AI-driven analytics, it addresses critical challenges such as fuel optimisation, real-time decision support, and emissions tracking.”

Shift4Good is an impact venture capital fund with €220M in assets under management, focused on the decarbonisation of the transportation sector.

Matthieu de Chanville, Managing Partner at Shift4Good, says, “Cetasol has developed a solution that delivers measurable impact and ROI from day one — it’s already proven, easy to deploy across a wide range of vessels, and highly relevant for fleet managers. What’s more, the platform lays the groundwork for the future of optimised maritime operations through predictive maintenance — a domain we already know well from our investments in road mobility. We see strong complementarity, both in terms of expertise and market presence, especially in Southeast Asia, where we’re very active.”

The announcement comes over a year after raising €2M in a seed round of funding in 2024. 

Fund utilisation

The Swedish company will use the funds to accelerate the global roll-out of its flagship solution iHelm, enabling 10–25 per cent fuel savings for small to mid-size vessels.

Cetasol will also use this new investment to grow its business and improve its commercial operations.

One of the main goals is to increase the use of iHelm across different types of vessels and locations, which will help improve energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Cetasol will also keep investing in product development to adapt its intelligent platform to the changing needs of the maritime industry and promote more sustainable operations worldwide.

“This investment confirms that our approach to AI-driven decision support and maritime sustainability is both needed and trusted. With this support, we are scaling faster and wider — delivering intelligent solutions to maritime operations globally,” says Ethan Faghani, CEO and Founder of Cetasol.

What does Cetasol solve?

Shipping is responsible for about 3 per cent of global CO₂ emissions.

To date, most of the innovation and investments have been focused on electrification and large vessels.

However, small and mid-sized vessels make up nearly 90 per cent of the global fleet.

These vessels offer the quickest and most scalable way to make a significant impact on the climate.

Fuel optimisation, based on real data from vessels, is important here. By using real-time and historical data, operators can make smart choices to improve performance, cut costs, and lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Here’s where Cetasol comes into play with its flagship product — iHelm.

Cetasol: AI-driven decision support

Led by Ethan Faghani, Cetasol develops intelligent, AI-driven solutions that transform vessel operations.

The company’s flagship product, iHelm, is a decision support solution for individual vessels and the entire fleet.

iHelm helps save fuel, track vessel performance, stay compliant, and maximise uptime, with real-time decision support and data-driven insights.

The system collects data from the vessel and uses Cetasol’s digital twin technology for real-time recommendations to the captain.

All operational data is sent to a cloud-based dashboard, allowing fleet managers and business owners to see real-time and historical performance metrics.

It also provides AI-driven support for decision-making and predictive maintenance.