Introduction
One of the beauties of our work as market intelligence analysts is the opportunity to interview fascinating people and companies. Better still is speaking to the same companies over many years and seeing how their businesses evolve as technology, competition, and customer requirements change.
In the autumn of 2022, Valour Consultancy interviewed MarPoint, then a relatively small maritime IT and digital services provider, about its Evo smart solution. At the time, the Greek company had already built an impressive position in commercial shipping, with its technology deployed across more than 3,000 vessels worldwide.
What MarPoint did not really do was satellite connectivity.
The company was focused primarily on onboard IT infrastructure, network management and digital services. It had some involvement in nearshore mobile connectivity, but satellite airtime was virtually negligible to the wider business.
Nearly four years later, quite a transformation has taken place.
MarPoint’s story is not really about a maritime connectivity company becoming bigger. It is about a maritime IT specialist recognising that the arrival of LEO broadband was fundamentally changing the digital architecture of the ship, and moving into the connectivity layer at exactly the right moment.
Yet connectivity is only part of the story. Today, MarPoint’s portfolio spans onboard IT infrastructure, virtualisation, network management, satellite communications, cybersecurity, crew welfare, and managed services.
Hence our description of the company as something of a Greek digital Swiss Army knife.
MarPoint has Successfully Reinvented Itself
MarPoint was founded in 2013 by Anastasis Kyrkos, Dimosthenis, and their partners. Over the following decade, the company built its position around maritime IT and digital infrastructure, developing solutions including its Evo smart box and UNI virtualisation platform.
The important point is that MarPoint did not build its installed base through satellite connectivity. It built the installed base first.
By the time LEO broadband began disrupting the maritime connectivity market, MarPoint already had thousands of vessels using its technology. That created a natural platform for introducing satellite airtime and additional managed services.
As recently as 2022, satellite airtime contributed virtually nothing to MarPoint’s revenues. The subsequent expansion into connectivity has therefore been remarkably rapid.
There is a certain irony here. During MarPoint’s earlier years, one shipping company told me categorically that the company would never sell connectivity.
Well, things change.
And perhaps that is the first lesson from the MarPoint story. In technology markets, being willing to change your mind when the facts change is generally more valuable than stubbornly sticking to a strategy simply because it once seemed right.
Knowing where the ball is going
The ability to read a situation faster than others, anticipate what is coming and act accordingly is enormously valuable.
Richie McCaw, the two-time Rugby World Cup-winning All Blacks captain, was renowned for apparently knowing where the ball would be before everyone else had worked out where it was going. Admittedly, opposition supporters sometimes had other theories about how he got there so quickly, but the principle stands.
MarPoint’s transformation has something of that quality.
The company expanded into connectivity as several major trends converged: the arrival of high-speed LEO broadband, accelerating maritime digitalisation following the COVID-19 pandemic, greater reliance on cloud applications, increasing cybersecurity requirements and, more recently, the omnipresence of artificial intelligence.
The clever part was not simply recognising that Starlink and other LEO networks would transform maritime connectivity. By 2023, that was becoming increasingly obvious.
The more important insight was recognising that as vessels became better connected, the traditional boundaries between satellite communications, onboard IT, cybersecurity and managed digital services would become increasingly blurred.
Greater bandwidth unlocks more applications. Those applications generate more data, require more IT infrastructure and increase operational complexity. In many respects, the challenge facing shipowners is no longer obtaining connectivity but managing everything that connectivity enables.
There was another commercial reality at work. Maritime IT and onboard networking had become increasingly dependent upon connectivity. As Starlink and other LEO services lowered the barriers to bandwidth, shipowners increasingly expected a single supplier to deliver not only the onboard infrastructure but also the communications that made it useful. Remaining entirely outside connectivity may eventually have become the bigger strategic risk.
If connectivity is the ship’s nervous system, companies like MarPoint increasingly want to become the central nervous system
Connectivity is the Enabler, but Evo and UNI Sit at the Heart of the Ecosystem
It would be easy to focus entirely on MarPoint’s recent growth in connectivity, but doing so would overlook the importance of its IT heritage.
At the centre of the company’s ecosystem are its Evo and UNI solutions.
Evo acts as the onboard connectivity and network management layer, bringing together multiple communications links including Starlink, OneWeb, GEO VSAT, L-band and 4G/5G. It can manage different networks, provide automatic failover and separate business and crew traffic.
UNI, meanwhile, extends MarPoint’s reach further into the vessel’s IT environment through onboard virtualisation. Rather than maintaining multiple standalone physical servers for different applications, virtual machines can be consolidated within a centralised onboard infrastructure.
The result can include remote monitoring, automated snapshots, replication, data backup, server updates and remote IT support.
If Evo manages how the vessel communicates with the outside world, UNI increasingly helps manage what happens inside the ship’s IT environment.
Together, they illustrate why describing MarPoint simply as a connectivity provider would be misleading. Connectivity may be one of the fastest-growing parts of the proposition, but it sits within a considerably broader digital ecosystem.
The Modern Ship is Becoming a Floating Enterprise Network
It is increasingly outdated to think of maritime connectivity as simply providing internet access to a ship.
A modern commercial vessel increasingly resembles a remote floating office, industrial facility and small data centre rolled into one.
Operational applications need to communicate with shore. Crew expect reliable internet access. Software requires updating. Cybersecurity threats must be managed. Data must be backed up. Cloud applications need connectivity. Remote monitoring systems need to remain online.
And unlike an office in London or Athens, the vessel may be thousands of miles from the nearest IT engineer when something goes wrong.
This is where MarPoint’s heritage becomes strategically relevant. The company did not enter connectivity from a standing start. It already understood onboard networks, vessel IT infrastructure and the operational realities of supporting ships remotely.
Connectivity therefore became a natural extension of its existing ecosystem rather than an entirely separate business.
Install. Connect. Manage. Monetise.
MarPoint’s business model can perhaps be summarised in four words: install, connect, manage, and monetise.
First, install the onboard infrastructure.
Second, connect the vessel across satellite and terrestrial networks.
Third, remotely manage elements of the vessel’s network and IT environment.
Finally, add further recurring services as the customer’s requirements evolve.
Those services can include connectivity, cybersecurity, network management, IT infrastructure support, crew welfare, and other digital applications.
The attraction of the model is fairly straightforward. Installing the initial hardware creates the foothold. Connectivity adds another recurring revenue stream. Network and IT management deepen the relationship further. The same vessel can therefore generate multiple sources of revenue without MarPoint having to win the customer all over again.
The company’s financial development provides considerable validation for this strategy. Revenue grew at a compound annual growth rate of approximately 37% between 2020 and 2024, while MarPoint maintained healthy profitability.
The shift towards recurring revenues is equally significant. Recurring revenue has grown substantially as a proportion of the business, reducing reliance on one-off hardware sales and creating greater visibility over future income.
For a maritime technology company, that is an attractive combination: an expanding installed base, multiple services per vessel, and an increasing proportion of recurring revenue.
Greece has Provided a Formidable Launchpad
MarPoint’s position in Greece should not be treated as merely an interesting geographic footnote.
Greece is one of the world’s most important shipowning centres and a fiercely competitive maritime technology market. Valour Consultancy estimates that MarPoint’s various services may already reach approximately 40% of vessels associated with the Greek shipping market.
That is a significant achievement.
It also gives MarPoint a powerful reference base for international expansion. If a technology provider can establish itself across a large proportion of the Greek-owned fleet, it has a useful calling card when approaching shipowners elsewhere.
But international expansion is rarely as straightforward as copying and pasting a successful domestic strategy.
Asia represents a substantial opportunity, while markets such as the Middle East, Northern Europe, and North America offer further potential. However, each brings different competitive dynamics, customer expectations, and established supplier relationships.
Success in Piraeus provides credibility. It does not automatically guarantee equivalent success in Singapore, Hamburg, or Houston.
From Technology Vendor to Digital Partner
Perhaps the more interesting strategic evolution is MarPoint’s potential transition from equipment vendor to outsourced digital partner.
A company can sell a router, a satellite terminal or a connectivity package and remain relatively peripheral to the customer’s wider operations. But once it starts managing connectivity, networks, servers, cybersecurity, and elements of onboard IT infrastructure, the nature of the relationship changes.
The supplier becomes more deeply embedded in the vessel’s digital environment.
That potentially creates greater customer stickiness, but the value should not simply be viewed in terms of making it difficult for customers to leave. The more important question is whether one provider can reduce complexity for the shipowner.
The maritime technology market has traditionally been highly fragmented. One company might provide the satellite connection, another the onboard network, another the servers, another cybersecurity, and yet another remote IT support.
That can work, but somebody must still integrate and manage the whole environment.
The ability to bring several of those functions together may become increasingly valuable as vessels become more digital.
There is another challenge that comes with becoming more deeply embedded in customers’ operations.
As providers move beyond selling equipment into managing critical IT infrastructure and communications, expectations around service, flexibility and commercial responsiveness inevitably increase.
Several industry contacts have suggested that while MarPoint’s technical capability is well regarded, commercial flexibility during exceptional operational situations will become increasingly important as the company competes against much larger global managed service providers.
As the business scales internationally, maintaining the entrepreneurial customer service associated with a smaller specialist will become every bit as important as adding new products.
The Biggest Opportunity may be the Convergence of IT and Connectivity
MarPoint’s biggest future opportunity may not lie in connectivity or IT individually, but in the convergence of the two.
Connectivity itself is becoming increasingly commoditised. The arrival of Starlink has dramatically increased available bandwidth while placing pressure on traditional maritime connectivity pricing and business models.
However, MarPoint’s expansion into connectivity is not without trade-offs.
Historically, one of the company’s attractions for many shipowners was precisely that it did not sell satellite airtime. Its role was viewed as that of an independent IT and network specialist, able to integrate whichever communications solution best suited the customer rather than promoting one particular commercial relationship.
Some industry participants have commented that moving into airtime inevitably changes that perception. Once a company begins selling connectivity itself, some customers may question whether it remains entirely technology agnostic or whether commercial incentives begin to influence network recommendations.
That does not mean MarPoint has lost its technical independence. Indeed, the company continues to support multiple satellite networks and positions itself as a multi-orbit provider. But perception can matter almost as much as reality in customer relationships.
Equally, many shipowners are increasingly seeking to reduce supplier complexity, making integrated solutions from a trusted provider more attractive than managing multiple specialist vendors.
But the complexity surrounding connectivity is not disappearing. If anything, it is increasing.
Many vessels now operate with multiple communications links. Business and crew traffic need managing. Applications compete for bandwidth. Cybersecurity becomes more important. Cloud services require resilient connections. Software and data increasingly move between ship and shore.
The better connected the vessel becomes, the more important intelligent network management and onboard IT infrastructure become.
For MarPoint, the existing installed base therefore represents more than simply a fleet of customers. It is a distribution platform for additional services.
The opportunity is not just to add more vessels. It is to increase the number of services used aboard each one.
Conclusion: The Value is in Joining the Dots
The most interesting thing about MarPoint is not simply how much the company has grown, but how many pieces of the vessel’s increasingly complex digital puzzle it is bringing together.
When Valour Consultancy interviewed MarPoint in 2022, the company was primarily a maritime IT specialist with more than 3,000 vessels using its solutions. It was not meaningfully involved in satellite connectivity. Less than four years later, its proposition spans onboard virtualisation, network management, multi-orbit satellite connectivity, cybersecurity, crew welfare and managed IT services.
That transformation reflects a much broader change taking place across shipping. The boundaries between connectivity, IT, cybersecurity and digital services are becoming increasingly blurred. As vessels become more connected, the challenge is no longer simply providing bandwidth but managing everything that connectivity enables.
MarPoint is also entering an increasingly competitive market. While it has expanded from IT into connectivity, many established connectivity providers, including Navarino, Marlink, Speedcast and Tototheo Global, have travelled in the opposite direction, building broader portfolios of cloud, cybersecurity and managed digital services. The competitive battleground increasingly sits in the middle.
Ironically, one of MarPoint’s original strengths was that it wasn’t another connectivity reseller. Today, connectivity has become an important part of its growth story, meaning it must continue to convince customers that selling airtime enhances rather than compromises its role as a trusted digital partner.
Perhaps that is the real lesson from MarPoint’s evolution. The companies most likely to succeed over the next decade will not necessarily be those selling the cheapest bandwidth or the most sophisticated software. They will be the ones capable of joining the dots between connectivity, IT, cybersecurity and digital operations.
MarPoint recognised that shift earlier than many. Whether it can continue to stay one step ahead may ultimately determine whether another blade is added to the Swiss Army knife.
One thing seems certain: if we sit down with MarPoint again in another four years, I suspect we’ll once again be talking about a rather different company.
To explore these dynamics in detail, Valour Consultancy has several studies available: The Future of Maritime Digitalisation – 2025 and The Future of Maritime Cybersecurity – 2025. Both research projects draw on insights from across the value chain and maps the challenges and opportunities facing the next phase of digital adoption. Valour Consultancy is a multi-award-winning provider of high-quality market intelligence and consultancy services.
Our report information brochure and free sample pages from the study can be accessed here and also in our proposal brochure.
