‘Google Maps for boats’ - Dorset’s savvy navvy breezes past £500k funding goal

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Daniel Face

savvy navvy has repeated history by surpassing its £500,000 funding goal within a day of launching its new campaign on crowdfunding platform Seedrs.

The Bournemouth business has so far raised just shy of £750,000 from 186 investors, with 29 days to go.

Touted as ‘Google Maps for boats’ by ex-Google engineer and founder Jelte Liebrand, savvy navvy held similarly successful raises on the platform in both 2022 and 2023.

Its app has reached 1.6 million downloads from leisure mariners and watersport enthusiasts in more than 100 countries around the world.

Last year, the company’s fully remote team gained lead engineer Bartosz ‘Bart’ Hejman and chief marketing officer Alex Ostler, based in Warsaw and Colorado respectively.

Jelte said: “Now in our seventh year here at savvy navvy, we’re actively shaping the marine industry for the better and challenging the bigger navigation apps in the market.”

Daniel Face

Born and raised in Berkshire, Dan fell into journalism after completing his bachelor’s degree in English at UCL. Writing for The Business Magazine and local Biz News sites has given him the opportunity to chat with all manner of small business owners and share their success stories with a wider audience. Outside of work, Dan enjoys live music, board games and quiz shows, and is making a slow but persistent effort to learn Spanish.