SaMMY is an IOT, cloud-based platform that allows skippers and sea travellers to search, compare, reserve and securely pay for a berth space using on-demand services, including the web, widgets, and a mobile app. MIN spoke with co-founder & CEO Ioannis Kostopoulos about the technology and showcasing at METSTRADE’s new Start-Up Pavilion.

What problem does your technology solve?

“The lack of technological solutions and particularly the absence of integrated berth and marina management systems, real-time monitoring, guidance and notification tools, are among the greatest problems for the marinas and tourist ports today. SaMMY is an IOT, cloud-based platform, that allows skippers and sea travellers to easily search, compare, reserve and securely pay a berth space using on-demand services (web, widgets, mobile app). The platform assists the marinas/tourist ports to optimise the management of their amenities and human capital, to attract more yachts or visitors, creating sustainable jobs and revenues.”

What makes your system different to competitors in your space?

“SaMMY is a sophisticated, modern and attractive (easy to use) solution that encourages marina engagement, transparency and process optimisation by providing real-time services, data interpretation and visualisation. The platform offers integrated and full-range digital services, quite revolutionary for the yachting industry market, combining real-time berth allocation with efficient marina management and IoT-enabled mechanisms.”

What are the opportunities in your market? And the biggest challenges?

“Only in Europe, 48 million people regularly participate in yachting. 6M+ boats are kept in European waters, while 10,000 marinas manage 1.75 million berths in inland and coastal areas in Europe (more than 25,000 marinas and 8 million berths globally). The digitalisation of the sector is still in low level and the biggest challenge is to adopt cutting-edge technologies like AI, IoT, big data interpretation and management, business analytics and AR/VR in order to provide modern and innovative services to a highly demanding audience.”

How is your consumer changing?

“Without any doubt, the younger ages, in combination with the penetration rate of technology to all the users today are changing the habits, the behaviour and the perspectives of our consumers. Definitely, the yachting trip is now viewed as a travel experience rather that a trip between two destinations and the demand for digital services, online trip planning and real-time information is higher than ever.”

What has been the biggest lesson since you started the business?

“One of our biggest lessons during our business lifetime was the need to be resilient and have a robust team. The two years of recession during the global pandemic completely changed the tourism dynamics. They were accompanied by big challenges, like keeping our client base and continuing to grow, working and exchanging information internally and externally in a remote way and adapting new features in our digital products and services. In that sense, I believe resilience is one of the big priorities for every company or start-up in a rapidly changing world.”

This year, METSTRADE and Yachting Ventures are teaming up to introduce the new Start-Up Pavilion – a platform for emerging start-ups to showcase their latest products and technologies, which will be running for the duration of the trade show in Hall 7.

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