About

Safety, security and data privacy are global issues of high concern in the fleet management industry. Moreover, the rapid growth of the yacht rental market has respectively resulted in a significant increase of its maintenance costs, fuel consumption, regulations and accidents. Both professionals in the yachting industry and private boat owners are still far away from exploiting the full potential of the IoT technology in order to monitor their boats and reap its full benefits. Having these in mind, we have created Openichnos, bridging this adoption gap in an industry that is remote and dangerous by definition. Taking it one step further, by offering the first device that combines 100% energy autonomy and 100% global coverage, we provide a complete tracking and monitoring solution to the industry that covers the full spectrum of the pain points since it is designed to work for all the boats, no matter of their size and use.

Solution & Product

Openichnos is an energy autonomous global tracking solution for efficient fleet management which addresses the challenges yacht rental market have. Openichnos transmits tracking data from the device on board, visualizing them into the asset owner’s PC-mobile phone. Our innovative algorithm enables hybrid communication combining both Satellite & GSM networks that switch seamlessly and automatically between them ensuring 100% coverage. Moreover, our extremely optimized power management algorithm permits the solar version of the device to ensure 100% energy autonomy in any environment. Openichnos also focuses on the integration of IoT management; by connecting our device to existing boat sensors and/or adding extra ones to meet all kind of needs, we provide a fully monitoring solution. The user can view in a single dashboard info such as battery status, weather conditions, bilge pump operation etc. while they can also set geofences and use actuators that cut off the engine power remotely.

Innovation & Scalability

Our innovation project has the vision of a world where everyone has access to intelligent fleet management and monitoring. Our IoT solution addresses the challenges of the yacht industry, offering the first device that combines 100% energy autonomy & 100% global coverage giving a complete tracking and monitoring solution, designed to work for all boats, no matter of their size and use. Openichnos also provides an integration for a group of sensors connected with the IoT monitoring device. The adoption of sensors which provide information about battery, fuel and weather conditions are of great interest in all aspects of transportation sector. Moreover, Openichnos already includes an event notification system. Until today, there is no commercially available technology that has been developed and tested to achieve all these features together in the fleet management sector as all existing solutions partially cover some of Openichnos features. Our target market consists of companies and individuals that charter yachts and boats for recreational purposes. The current size of the market is estimated to 1.2 Billion $, consisting of a 500.000 charter fleet [3] in target countries such as Greece, Spain, Italy, France, Croatia and Caribbean Islands, revealing the size of the Openichnos growth potential.

Traction & achievements

Jun 2015: R&D kickstart Dec 2016: Prototype, BlueGrowth competition winners Jul 2017: BETA launch: Greek market Jan 2018: Boot exhibition in Dusseldorf first participation Jun 2018: Fleet Monitor Solution enabled Jan 2019: Boot exhibition in Dusseldorf second participation Mar 2019: IoT gateway enabled with NMEA 2000 compatibility May 2019: International expansion – Customers in Portugal, Malta, France Jan 2020: Boot exhibition in Dusseldorf third participation May 2020: Mobile apps launch Mar 2021: IoT gateway for actuators enabled, SMS notifications enabled

Team & Why Us

Georgios Koutras: founder & CEO. BS & MSc in Computer Science (UoCrete), MBA in Hellenic Open Uni. He worked in many FP7 & Greek funded research projects as technical manager and has 10+ years of experience as CEO at an ICT SME. His role corresponds with his expertise in business development & innovation marketing. Themis Koutsouras: founder & COO. BS & MSc in Computer Science (UoCrete). He was research assistant and IT consultant in EU funded projects. He has 10+ years of experience as a software analyst-developer, an expertise that corresponds to his role. Christos Xanthos: CTO. BS in Computer Science (UoCrete). Since 2010 works as a software engineer, focusing on designing & developing high performance web apps. He is the designer of the Openichnos system. Manolis Frantzolakis: VP Engineering. BS in Computer Science (UoCrete). Since 2010 works as a software engineer, focusing on advanced web systems, back-ends, front-ends and mobile apps. He is the designer of Openichnos cloud service.

Funding Needs

Openichnos has achieved to advance from the idea to Technology Readiness Level 9 using only private funding from its founders, being an utterly self-funded project until now. It is crucial at this point to handle intellectual property management issues and define our further market strategy and business plan prior to the discussion with the investors that have already expressed their interest to invest. Furthermore, one of the most significant obstacles in the realization of the project success is the current fierce conditions for investments, a case that has been utterly escalated due to COVID-19 crisis. Nevertheless, it is strongly believed that the market uptake of this technology can help Greece and EU in general to exit from the economic crisis.