Biography
Ali Gara is the founder of MagicPort, a Singapore-based startup building digital tools for port operations.
The company’s products are designed for “port calls”, the period during which a ship is temporarily stationed at a port for loading, unloading, supplies, maintenance etc. MagicPort’s products serve the various actors involved in such port call operations.
MagicPort has raised around $2M in funding. Prior to MagicPort, Ali spent over seven years as an investment manager for the IFC’s Emerging Asia Fund. He also worked at BP and at the Central Bank of Azerbaijan, where he is from.
The switch from large institutional investor to startup founder is rare. Why did you do it?
I grew up in Azerbaijan, as part of the country’s first post-independence generation (Azerbaijan gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991). My generation’s golden aspiration was to study abroad and return home to build our country. That was also my plan.
I went to university in Turkey and to grad school in the US. I moved back to Azerbaijan, where I worked for BP (an oil & gas conglomerate) and the country’s central bank. I felt I would have a bigger impact building in the private sector, so I applied for business school and got into Stanford.
Leaving Stanford, I lacked a great business idea but had significant student debt. The IFC role gave me the opportunity to learn business and investing (as well as pay back my debt). I met inspiring entrepreneurs, scoured through numerous business plans, and gained insights about how great companies were built.
I’ve always had a generalist profile. The shipping industry fits that profile well, as it sits at the junction of trade, finance, geopolitics… I was living in Singapore at the time, a global shipping hub. Through conversations with local shipping actors, I learned about the inefficiencies that could be solved with tech and data. That’s how MagicPort was born.
Which inefficiencies does MagicPort solve?
Ships come to ports to be loaded/unloaded and get supplies/services. This process is known as “port calls”. These port calls mobilize various actors. These include:
- Traders / charterers: who rent the ship for their cargo but don’t own it.
- Ship owners and managers: who own and/or manage the ship.
- Terminals: where loading/unloading operations take place.
- Ship agents: the local representatives of the ship, who deal with government entities, organize port call activities, act on behalf of charterers, owners and managers.
- Various suppliers and service providers: tugboat operators, provision suppliers, ship maintenance providers, etc.
Over 50% of port calls today rely on email chains and Excel spreadsheets for coordination, planning, billing, etc. This leads to waste, both time and money-wise, as well as mistakes.
There’s a ton of products you could build. Which use cases did you focus on?