ELXA

Our CEO James Kim @#SMW2026 Conference's "𝐈𝐧 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐍𝐞𝐱𝐭 𝐁𝐢𝐠 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡 – Startups Rapid Fire": 1. he explained his 20 year-background and experience in maritime commerce & operations in first 10 and tech innovation & applications in the last 10 years. 2. he then highlighted the problem: despite more digital innovations, applications and adoptions over the last decade, the industry grapples with more emails, more WhatsApps, more calls. 3. he clarified the complex maritime web as a system, identifying 5 key stakeholders: from the cargo owner buying freight, via the broker or not, with the ship-operator fulfilling the contract, sending the ship to the port (for loading & unloading), via the agent handling the port logistics, legal & regulatory requirements. 4. so he showed how while maritime software today: - Optimises within an enterprise - Integrates between systems (APIs) - Improves visibility Maritime reality is: 🔹Multi-party (charterer, broker, operator, agent, terminal, surveyor, bunker, etc.) 🔹Multi-clock (port, vessel, cargo, commercial timelines) 🔹Exception-driven (constant deviations, renegotiations, updates) 👉 The gap is not “lack of connection” 👉 The gap is breakdown of coordination between decisions in those connections - resulting in the need to communicate outside of these 'connections' 5. then he informed how elxa has closed the spaces (with tangible results) in between these connections as: a coordination infrastructure for maritime operations, and the system that carries the conversation and the consequence. It was also great to see other founders in their respective pitches: Groundup.ai, Leon Lim🚀, CEO & Co-Founder MicroSec, Vishram Mishra, Founder & CEO Pyxis, Tommy Phun, Founder Bunkerchain, Leon Ling, CEO & Co-Founder Aliciabots, Inder Mukhopadhyay, Founder & CEO

"𝐉𝐚𝐩𝐚𝐧 𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐤𝐬 𝟔𝟕𝐭𝐡 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝟔𝟕 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐬𝐨-𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐝 “𝐝𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲.” Sounds Shocking? We know it's true or close to true as we help some maritime companies digitalize. So we see it both as a challenge and an opportunity. One of the incidental values is that maritime is not a digital laggard in the Japanese context, and there is a real chance for it to 'out-perform'. 😀 . PS. Thank you Satoru Murase for the post and the Richard Katz's Substack article.