The LSE Directory / Alternative data
Windward is a maritime intelligence company whose platform, marketed as Maritime AI, fuses AIS vessel tracking data, satellite and remote sensing imagery (electro optical, synthetic aperture radar and radio frequency signals), trade and vessel ownership databases, and proprietary machine learning and generative AI models into a single operational picture of global shipping activity. It aggregates more than 10 billion data points from over 20 sources to screen vessels for sanctions and ownership risk, detect illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, flag GPS jamming and spoofing, track containers, and identify anomalous vessel routes that can indicate smuggling or other criminal activity. Its customer base spans defense and intelligence agencies, law enforcement (including the EU's MAOC(N) maritime drug interdiction unit), and commercial users such as energy companies, shipowners, mining firms, freight forwarders, port authorities, banks and insurers. That dual audience is a differentiator within the alternative data category: the same vessel movement and risk signals it produces for security and compliance screening are also consumed by financial and commodity trading desks as a market intelligence input. Recent product additions include MAI Expert, a generative AI tool for automating vessel and cargo risk screening, and a Maritime Intelligence Operations Center offering for continuous monitoring of specific chokepoints. Windward was founded in 2010 by Ami Daniel and Matan Peled, former Israeli Navy officers who met during Daniel's naval service and Peled's command of a patrol ship; they started the company in an apartment outside Tel Aviv. Before going public it raised roughly 32 million dollars across several funding rounds from investors including Horizons Ventures and Aleph. The company listed on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange on 6 December 2021 under the ticker WNWD, at the time the first Israeli listing on the LSE in five years. In December 2024, private equity firm FTV Capital agreed to take Windward private in an all cash deal valuing the company at about 216 million pounds (roughly 280 million dollars on a fully diluted basis), close to double its 2021 IPO valuation of 126.5 million pounds. The acquisition completed on 18 March 2025, Windward delisted from the London Stock Exchange, and the company is now positioned as it expands further into the US market; FTV Capital said Windward had more than tripled its customer base since the IPO.
