Supply Chain2026Harbours360
A marketplace for buying and selling ships and offshore equipment
Harbours360 is an online marketplace for ships, offshore equipment and heavy industrial machinery in Africa. Buyers and sellers are both checked before they can trade, listings are inspected before they go live, and the money sits with a bank until the asset has been delivered.
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The problem
- Ships and offshore equipment were being bought and sold over phone calls and messaging apps. Neither side could easily confirm who the other person was, or whether the asset was really theirs to sell.
- Someone always had to go first. Either the buyer sent the money and hoped, or the seller released the asset and hoped. When a deal went wrong there was no record to fall back on.
- Deals crossed borders and currencies, and each one was put together from scratch. Afterwards there was nothing either side could show a regulator.
What we built
- A public catalogue anyone can search. A listing only goes live after agents have checked the documents, the ownership and the condition of the asset.
- Identity and company checks on both sides before anyone can trade, so each party knows who they are dealing with.
- Purchase requests that go to a named agent, who reviews the buyer and the paperwork before a deal is created.
- Live auctions with a countdown, open bidding and reserve prices, so every bidder sees the same thing at the same moment.
- Payments held in escrow with a partner bank. Funds are released only once delivery is confirmed, and can be split into stages.
- Digital signing for purchase agreements, inspection reports and handover certificates, with every step recorded.
- Several currencies supported, and reporting built around Nigerian maritime and company rules, so a finished deal can be shown to a regulator.