Recently Tesla supremo Elon Musk urged people to 'use Signal’. 

The influential entrepreneur was referencing the Signal Messenger app and sadly not Signal Ocean’s popular shipping intelligence platform. However, bubbling under the surface the two products share far more than just a similar name. 

Silicon Valley’s movers and shakers are very excited by Signal Messenger. Millions of users have downloaded the encrypted messaging service, which collects almost no personal data from its users. The service, set up by Moxie Marlinspike and Brian Acton in 2018, offers an alternative service to Facebook-owned WhatsApp. The hugely popular instant messaging app recently updated its terms of service and many users are uncomfortable with a privacy policy which allows their data to be shared with Facebook. 

Like our namesake, the Signal Ocean team is passionate about privacy and data security. 

Our shipbroking and chartering users do not want to share their vessel and cargo lists with other market participants. Segregated customer data is at the heart of the Signal Ocean proposition and it took significant effort to achieve. 

Our solution allows customers to feed a diverse portfolio of unstructured data, such as email reports from brokers, port agents and other sources. This heterogeneous data flow is then swiftly deciphered and automatically processed. The overall end result is an immediate snapshot of the market.But fundamentally - like Signal Messenger - this is kept strictly and absolutely private. Each customer builds their own perspective, taking advantage of their information wealth like never before. 

Signal Ocean allows shipping professionals to stay on top of fast-moving markets, make quick profit and loss calculations and anticipate their competitors’ next moves. What we're passionate about is helping chartering professionals make the best decisions based on the data available to them. In a complex landscape, we're a service for users who want to ensure they take full advantage of the information they have at their disposal without having to share it with others. 

“The Signal Ocean guiding principle is that respecting the market structure is crucial,” explained Signal Group CEO Ioannis Martinos. "Brokers, in particular, bring lots of value to the table - they’re critical in connecting principals and supporting throughout the process, bringing a trade to a successful conclusion.”

"But in a similar fashion to Signal Messenger, democratizing or exploiting private information is absolutely not part of the long-term plan."