History

Marport was founded in Iceland in 1996 to develop acoustic monitoring systems for the deep sea commercial fishing fleet. The company’s commercial activities were led by founder Oskar Axelsson from his office in Reykjavik.  Technical activities including acoustic system engineering and sensor production were out-sourced to Merle Stout, owner of Stout Marine Inc., located in Everett, Washington. In addition to catch control sensors, Stout Marine was an early innovator in trawl mounted sonar equipment and other advanced technologies for commercial fishing.

In 2001, Merle Stout passed away after a courageous battle with cancer. To ensure business continuity, Marport Iceland purchased Stout Marine from the estate and renamed the company Marport Stout Inc. Shortly after the purchase, Marport Stout relocated to its present facilities in Snohomish, Washington – where it still manufactures a wide variety of Marport’s subsea sensor products.

In 2003 a Canadian investment group led by Karl Kenny and Anthony Paul made a significant equity investment in Marport Iceland. The group recognized strong potential for underwater sensing and communications in other application areas including military, offshore energy and ocean science. This lead to the formation of Marport Canada Inc. and the initial recruitment of an engineering team that would ultimately design Marport’s Software Defined Sonar technology platform.

During this period it was decided to base the software engineering team in St. John’s, Newfoundland while the hardware design was contracted to a engineering company based in Lorient, France.  In 2004, a number of the hardware engineers - led by Didier Caute - decided to establish an engineering consultant company with Marport as its major customer. This group was eventually incorporated into Marport France SAS and forms Marport’s hardware engineering team – with special emphasis on underwater acoustics, digital signal processing, embedded system designs and FPGA based architectures.

In 2005, the engineering teams delivered a proof-of-concept prototype that demonstrated the technical and commercial advantages of Software Defined Sonar. After reviewing the market potential for this technology, it was decided to expand the company further. A number of new executives – including Derrick Rowe (Chairman) and Bernie Beckett (CFO) - joined the company to assist with corporate financing initiatives and corporate structure.

In 2006, Marport Canada Inc. amalgamated all the existing operating companies under one holding company called Marport Deep Sea Technologies Inc.  –  a privately held, corporation registered under the Canada Business Corporations Act.

From 2006 to 2008, Marport completed a succession of private equity placements from private, strategic and institutional investors. In January, 2008 Marport was awarded a multi-year funding commitment of over $2 million dollars from the Atlantic Innovation Fund for further development of its software defined acoustics technology. In February, 2008, Canada’s National Research Council awarded Marport an additional funding commitment of $500,000 to support research and development in advanced sonar signal processing techniques.

In July, 2009, Marport announced the acquisition of C-Tech Ltd., a leading supplier of advanced sonars for underwater defence, including anti-submarine warfare, mine countermeasures and harbour surveillance. The combination created a sonar powerhouse and positioned Marport as the largest underwater acoustics technology company in Canada. The company has been rebranded as Marport C-Tech and is located in a 38,000sq-ft. engineering and manufacturing facility in Cornwall, Ontario.

Today, Marport continues to execute on its highly focused growth strategy to build the business in preparation for an Initial Public Offering or eventual sale.