UniSea, a Norwegian company that makes fleet management software for shipping companies, has acquired 100% of Kaiko Systems, a Berlin startup whose mobile app uses AI to help ship crews run inspections. UniSea signed the deal on May 29, 2026 and announced it on June 2. The price was not disclosed.
The purchase was financed by a capital injection from Adelis Equity, the Swedish private equity firm that became UniSea's majority owner in 2022. Adelis manages about €4.5 billion (about $5 billion).
Kaiko will keep operating as a separate product with its own roadmap and team, UniSea said. Customers of either company do not have to change how they work, but the group plans to build links so that data can move between Kaiko and UniSea's modules. Together the two companies serve more than 4,000 vessels.
What Kaiko built
Kaiko was founded in 2020 by Fabian Fussek, its chief executive, and Eddy del Valle Pino, its chief technology officer. Its mobile-first software helps crews prepare for and score better in mandatory inspections, including SIRE 2.0 self-assessments and port state control checks, as well as visual inspections of hulls and equipment.
The platform applies AI and its own computer vision models to inspection work, including detecting documents, verifying images and spotting corrosion. Other modules let crews track the condition of a vessel and standardise reports, while shore teams get dashboards that check the data and rank risks and tasks.
Kaiko says it supports more than 1,000 vessels for ship managers and has a team of more than 30 technology and maritime specialists in Berlin, London and Singapore. Customers named at its 2022 seed round included Columbia Shipmanagement, Marlow Navigation, USC Barnkrug, CTM and The Asian Spirit Steamship Company.
“For our customers, the product and the people behind it stay the same. For our team, this is continuity and acceleration at the same time.”
Why UniSea is buying
UniSea began as a provider of health, safety, environment and quality software and has added maintenance, procurement and dry-docking tools. Its platform now has 40 modules used across more than 3,000 vessels. In 2023 it bought Maindeck, a dry-docking project tool that has since been used on more than 1,800 projects. Apart from that deal, UniSea's growth since 2022 has mostly been organic, the company said.
UniSea founder and chief executive Kurt Roar Vilhelmsen said Kaiko adds frontline inspections to the group and is the next step in UniSea's move from safety specialist to full fleet management provider. Chief operating officer Dagfinn Rasmussen said the deal would speed up UniSea's AI work and that both products are meant to stay specialised.
Vilhelmsen said UniSea would keep looking for other specialist software companies to add. Adelis director Jørgen Møinichen said the firm planned to back the combined UniSea Group for the long term.
The founders and the funding
Kaiko raised a €2 million (about $2 million) seed round in September 2022 from Schoeller Holdings, the parent of Columbia Shipmanagement, along with Vineta Ventures, A Round Capital, Flagship Founders and shipping figures Clasen Rickmers and Justus Kniffka, the American Journal of Transportation reported.
In March 2025 it raised a €6 million (about $6.5 million) Series A led by Hi inov and Flashpoint Venture Growth, with existing investor Motion Ventures taking part, Smart Maritime Network reported. That brought its total outside funding to about €9 million (about $10 million).
Fussek said that over five years the team had built a platform with capabilities no one else in the industry had, and that customers were gaining a long-term owner with the resources to keep investing in it.
A shift in maritime software
Vilhelmsen said the deal reflects a wider change in how shipowners buy software. Rather than a patchwork of disconnected tools, he said, they want deeper relationships with trusted providers that can offer connected products that work together.
Adelis has followed a buy-and-build approach across its portfolio. Since raising its first fund in 2013, the firm has made 49 platform investments and more than 350 add-on acquisitions, mostly in the Nordic mid-market. UniSea said its workforce has tripled since Adelis invested, and that the owner's backing has paid for new modules.
For Kaiko's investors, the sale came a little over a year after the Series A. None of the parties disclosed what they received or what Kaiko was valued at.
