Q&A: Shipfinex CEO shares his thoughts on widening access to vessel investment

Capt. Vikas Pandey, Founder and CEO of Shipfinex, shares his thoughts on widening access to vessel investment, new funding opportunities for shipowners and the risks investors should understand in this Q&A.

For most of shipping’s history, ownership sat with families, a handful of funds and banks. A vessel was a single, indivisible asset worth tens of millions, so the investor pool was naturally small.

That is starting to change. Tokenisation lets ownership of an individual vessel be divided into smaller units, held by a much wider and more global pool of investors, with ownership records and earnings distributions handled transparently on-chain.

Bank lending to shipping has contracted over the past decade and remains concentrated on the largest names. Private credit is filling part of the gap, but at a cost. A broader investor base gives owners another source of equity, tied to the asset rather than requiring a public listing of the whole company.

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