Valstad Shipworks
@ValstadShip
Reviving American Shipbuilding.
In 5 years all new ships commissioned for US oil & gas exports should be built in America. At Valstad our mission is to make this a reality.
Had a fantastic dinner with the CEO of American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) this evening. Great organization that interacts with shipyards all over the world. They’ve seen the best of the best, and we’ll be putting that expertise into practice building American ships.
Conventional wisdom: US shipbuilding can't be competitive because of steel prices and high wages. Reality: Wages are similar in the US and South Korea, but South Korean yards are 4-5x more productive. The solution: Scale & specialization. We need to build a lot more ships.
Valstad heads to Washington! Our CEO and COO will be in DC this week to talk shipbuilding. @SECNAV gave a great speech at @reindsummit, and we're excited to be speaking with like-minded folks. It's time to build a *lot* more ships in America.
"[Learning rates] range generally between 80% and 85% in the shipbuilding sector which means a reduction in cost between 15% and 20% with every doubling of production" 👇 This is why scale matters.
GM. We'll be at @reindsummit today, so if you see us say hello! Also acceptable: "Ahoy matey" "¿Dónde están los baños?" "Je voudrais un croissant" "Ich brauche Benzin für mein Auto"
Where we're going we don't need roads... We need steel. Lots and lots of steel.
Thanks to the nice folks at @WeAreHII for giving us a tour of their Charleston facility today! Fun fact: they built part of the launch tower for Artemis in their 225-foot-tall Building 1.
We've started the process of evaluating site locations for our first shipyard. Currently in the running: Louisiana, Texas, and South Carolina. Three great states, each with its own unique advantages.
We closed a $2.6M pre-seed round from N49P, 10VC, Elementum, and Northside Ventures. Hit the link for details👇 valstad.com/article/valsta…
Should our first ship should be christened "A Succulent American Ship"?
Happy Independence Day! 🇺🇸 May your fireworks be loud and your beer cold.
The key to achieving great things lies in having a huge mission and a small first step. Our goal is to revive American shipbuilding, scaling US output from less than five to hundreds of oceangoing ships per year. Our first step? River barges.
What happens when autonomous ships get lonely at sea and would rather eat ice cream and watch Frasier reruns than move cargo? These are the important questions we're asking at Valstad.
Should we bring back the hybrid floating dry dock / skate park? Don't worry about sharks. Their backside 360 game is weak.
The World’s Largest Floating Dry Dock Was Towed Across the Atlantic to Bermuda in 1869 - When Britain needed a solution for ship repairs in the Atlantic, engineers in the 1860s built the largest floating dry dock ever attempted, a 380-foot iron structure weighing over 8,000…
He who controls the spice-moving ships, controls the universe. (although all that curvature would be an absolute nightmare to build)
Our pre-seed round should close in the next week or so. More on that soon. Now for the next funding challenge: who's lending to CapEx-heavy startups? Our first facility will cost ~$50M to build & our goal is to be operational by next summer at the latest. Speed is life.