Sedna Enters a New Era: A New Standard for How AI-Powered Shipping Software Is Built
Sedna, the Intelligent Operating System for Shipping, today announced a series of moves that accelerate its position as the platform at the centre of how maritime and commodities professionals work, and set the pace for what AI-powered shipping software can be.
Over the past several years, Sedna has earned the trust of some of the most respected names in the industry across the world’s most important shipping markets. Processing more than 10 million emails a day, Sedna is custodian of the largest unstructured data flow in shipping. Unlike legacy platforms, that data belongs entirely to each customer: not anonymised, not commoditised, and not used for anything beyond powering their own operation. That foundation, curated in close partnership with its customers, is what makes today’s announcements the natural next step in enabling them to move beyond email.
Central to this is the acquisition of Bridge Labs and the appointment of its founder, Alex Crooks, as Chief Product Officer, alongside the appointment of Lucie Phillips as Chief Operating Officer.
A new model for product engineering
The acquisition of Bridge Labs reflects Sedna’s ambition to set a new standard for how AI-powered software is built and shipped.
Bridge Labs was founded less than two years ago by Alex Crooks, a former Sedna product manager, and merged earlier this year with The Shipping Bot, the AI workflow company founded by Daniel Guevara, a seafarer and former shipbroker. Together, the team has shipped five commercial AI-powered products for some of the largest names in the industry, including Louis Dreyfus, Glencore, IFCHOR Galbraiths, MOL Chemical Tankers, Bunge, Oldendorff and Fednav: demonstrating how AI, applied to the engineering process itself, enables a focused team to deliver at a level that redefines what is possible.
Sedna is bringing that capability in-house and scaling it across its product organisation.
“Shipping teams won’t change how they work for a product that isn’t exceptional,” said Bill Dobie, CEO of Sedna. “What Bridge Labs demonstrated is that AI, applied intelligently to how software is engineered, raises the bar on what a focused team can deliver. That is the model we are building around.”
“The opportunity to bring that approach into Sedna, at the scale of what Sedna has become, is a significant one,” said Alex Crooks. “Our customers know exactly what great looks like. We are here to build it.”
Building the right organisation
Alongside the acquisition, Sedna is directing investment toward the roles and capabilities with the most direct impact on customers, bringing experienced shipping, AI and product talent into customer-facing functions to match the ambition set out today.
Reflecting this, Jacob Koch Blicher has been promoted to Vice President of Customer Success. Blicher first worked with Sedna on the other side of the table, as part of the team implementing the platform at Norden, and has since driven its success at two further shipping companies: customer closeness led by someone who has been the customer.
Lucie Phillips joins as Chief Operating Officer, bringing deep operational and commercial leadership experience across high-growth technology businesses including Zencargo, Deliveroo and Culture Trip.
“Sedna sits at the centre of an industry that is ready to change how it works,” said Phillips. “The combination of the customer base, the data, and the way we’re building with AI makes this one of the most compelling opportunities in enterprise software. I’m here to build the organisation that delivers on it at scale.”
“Our customers are exceptional partners,” said Dobie. “The relationships we’ve built, and the trust that comes with them, are what gives us the confidence to move at this pace. These announcements are a reflection of that momentum, and of our commitment to keep raising what great looks like for this industry.”
The foundation and the road ahead
In the last two years alone, Sedna’s product surface area has tripled. What began as a maritime-focused email platform has become the Intelligent Operating System for Shipping: Sedna Email; Sedna Trade, including Sedna Prefixture and the Sedna Voyage Management System (VMS); and Sedna Build, its AI and software developer toolkits. One connected system at the heart of how maritime and commodities professionals work, joining communication, commercial operations and data into a single AI-powered intelligence layer. Open by design: customers and partners can build on it and extend it, on no one's roadmap but their own.
The next phase moves from a system that captures context to one that actively reasons from it: surfacing what matters before teams go looking, keeping chartering, operations and finance working from the same real-time picture, and acting as an intelligent operator on behalf of the professionals running shipping.
The changes announced today build the organisation to deliver on that ambition, at pace, and in partnership with the customers who have helped shape every step of it.
About Sedna
Sedna is the Intelligent Operating System for Shipping. For too long, shipping teams have worked across fragmented platforms: the inbox where decisions happen, and the systems where work gets done. Sedna closes that gap. One platform connecting communication, commercial operations and data, so teams always have the right context, at the right moment, with the freedom to evolve as markets shift.
About Bridge Labs
Shipping teams spend 80% of their day buried in emails and documents instead of making decisions. Bridge Labs turns that information into structured data automatically, inside the tools teams already use.
press@sedna.com
