Image Credit : ShipReality

Global shipping faces immense pressure to decarbonize under IMO’s 2030/2050 targets. The challenge is retrofitting roughly 60,000 ships with energy-efficient systems across a 20-year lifecycle. However, the process of ship retrofitting today is slow, manual, and fragmented with limited access to expert talent, high travel costs, and complex coordination across shipyards, classification societies, and vessel crews. Ship owners and operators often struggle with inefficient 2D plans, delayed retrofit validations, costly on-site inspections, and difficulty maintaining regulatory compliance due to a lack of real-time collaboration and data visibility. These pain points create a major bottleneck in achieving fleet-wide emissions reductions within required timelines.

ShipReality aims to solve this with its industrial metaverse platform, Founded Founded in 2018 by Georgios Bourtzos, Lambros Kaiktsis, Alexandros Ginnis, and Christos Papadopoulos. The founding team merges marine engineering, geometric modeling, CAD software, gaming graphics, and business experience. ShipReality raised its seed funding in February 2019, securing approximately US $150,000. This round was led by two notable early-stage investment programs: the Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) and the Katapult Ocean Accelerator, both of which focus on supporting deep-tech and ocean-related startups. The investment provided crucial early capital to support the development of ShipReality’s augmented and mixed reality solutions for ship design and retrofitting.

ShipReality offers:

• ShipXR: a full 3D platform for VR/AR/MR-enabled lifecycle applications.
• ShipMR-Design: generative design tool that converts 2D plans into optimized 3D retrofits, up to 10× faster.
• ShipMR-Remote: anchors data to physical ship locations, enabling remote inspections, surveys, maintenance, and expert live support.
• ShipVR: untethered multi-user VR tool for design reviews, collaborative walkthroughs, measurements, and crew training.

These tools help seafarers and company operators by enabling virtual inspections, reducing travel for experts, augmenting onboard capabilities, accelerating retrofit cycles, and ensuring EEXI/CII compliance, all while cutting emissions and costs.

Image Credit : ShipReality

ShipReality’s technology works by creating a geometric digital twin of a vessel using a combination of laser scans, 360° photography, CAD files, and AI-based model reconstruction, which is then integrated into its XR-enabled platform. This digital twin serves as the foundation for various applications: ShipMR-Design generates optimized 3D retrofit plans from 2D drawings up to ten times faster, while ShipMR-Remote anchors technical data and 3D models to real-world ship environments, enabling remote inspections, surveys, and live expert guidance via AR/MR headsets or tablets. ShipVR allows multi-user immersive walkthroughs for design reviews, crew training, and operational simulations, ensuring safe and accurate implementation of retrofits. By combining real-time data visualization, spatial computing, and remote collaboration, the platform accelerates retrofit validation, reduces expert travel, enhances crew performance, and ensures compliance with EEXI/CII regulations, addressing critical challenges in maritime decarbonization and operational efficiency.

It should be noted that the initial deployment of AR/MR technology requires upfront investment in hardware, scanning equipment, and integration services, which may pose a barrier for smaller operators. However, as extended reality (XR) hardware becomes more affordable and scalable, these costs are likely to decrease, broadening accessibility. Additionally, effective adoption depends on crew and expert training users must become proficient in XR tools to fully leverage the platform. This presents an opportunity for ShipReality to expand its training programs and develop more intuitive user interfaces. The system also relies heavily on accurate laser scanning and data inputs; errors in these early stages can lead to operational inefficiencies. Improving AI-based model validation and offering enhanced QA tools could mitigate these risks. 

ShipReality has been applied in various maritime use cases, demonstrating its impact on efficiency and sustainability. One key application is retrofit verification, where its XR platform overlays 3D models on actual ship environments, enabling remote experts to inspect piping systems and energy-efficient equipment installations without being physically present, significantly reducing travel and survey costs. It has also been used in remote class surveys, aligning with initiatives like ABS and Crowley’s AR trials, allowing surveyors to conduct inspections in real time through mixed reality tools. Additionally, crew training and safety drills benefit from ShipVR’s immersive simulations, where seafarers can practice engine room operations, maintenance procedures, and emergency responses in a risk-free virtual environment. These use cases not only enhance operational accuracy and crew competency but also support compliance with strict decarbonization and safety regulations.

ShipReality has cultivated strategic partnerships and garnered key clients that reinforce its credibility and expand its reach. In addition to the supported it’s garnered from the prominent accelerators mentioned above, it also has secured backing from the NVIDIA Inception and Microsoft for Startups programs, providing advanced AI and computing infrastructure. On the commercial and operational front, ShipReality is aligned with leaders in maritime classification and operations: its mixed-reality approach parallels the remote AR survey pilots led by ABS and Crowley, where on-board crews use AR/MR technology for real-time collaboration with off-site experts. These collaborations demonstrate ShipReality’s relevance in the evolving landscape of maritime digitalization and sustainability.

ShipReality brings a unique and timely solution to shipping decarbonization, powered by XR-enabled design, remote operations, and emissions compliance. With support from top accelerators and growing interest from classification and maritime service providers, it is well-positioned to drive transformative change in shipping.

References

Crowley. (2023, March 15). ABS, Crowley advance augmented reality technology for maritime. Hellenic Shipping News. https://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/abs-crowley-advance-augmented-reality-technology-for-maritime/ 

Katapult Ocean. (2023). Katapult Ocean Accelerator. Global Fund for Coral Reefs. https://globalfundcoralreefs.org/reef-plus/opportunities/katapult-ocean-accelerator/ 

MarineLink. (2019, June 25). Maritime’s amazing world of mixed reality. MarineLink. https://www.marinelink.com/news/maritimes-amazing-world-mixed-reality-471462 

ShipReality. (2025). About ShipReality. ShipReality. https://www.shipreality.com/about-1 

Tracxn. (2025). ShipReality funding profile. Tracxn. https://tracxn.com/d/companies/ship-reality/ 

Wärtsilä. (2022). Smart realities – Simulation and training. Wärtsilä Marine. https://www.wartsila.com/marine/products/simulation-and-training/smart-realities