Voly acquires Oceanskies in latest expansion drive

Voly, a leading software, payments and crew-services platform for the global superyacht industry, has acquired Oceanskies (the specialist yacht crew employment, payroll and registration business) marking its fourth takeover since 2023.

It follows previous acquisitions of Pinpoint Works in February 2023, Voyonic in September 2024, and Workrest in December 2024.

Oceanskies administers the employment of approximately 5,000 crew across owners and management companies, operating from Guernsey, Jersey, Malta and the UK. Brought together with Voly Crew, it creates the most complete crew offering in yachting for employment, payroll, payments, hours-of-rest and compliance from a single provider. The acquisition takes the number of crew administered under the Voly umbrella to more than 10,000.

Digitising a fragmented crew management sector

According to Voly, despite the global superyacht fleet spending an estimated €30bn–€40bn annually on construction, operation, refits, and chartering, specialist software currently reaches less than 20 per cent of the world’s yachts. Many vessels still rely on spreadsheets and fragmented, single-purpose software.

At the same time, regulatory pressure on owners, managers, and captains continues to rise, driven by compliance requirements surrounding MLC, STCW, anti-money laundering, and emerging IMO and EU emissions reporting frameworks.

Voly’s strategy focuses on building an all-in-one platform to house superyacht operational and financial requirements, leveraging digitisation and artificial intelligence (AI) automation to streamline workflows.

“I am immensely proud of what my fellow directors, our team and I have built at Oceanskies over thirteen years,” says Duncan Swanson, co-founder of Oceanskies. “This feels like exactly the right moment to join a larger business. Our clients get the continuity and the specialist attention they have always had, and now the technology and investment to go with it.”

Ian Flanagan, chief executive of Voly, adds: “We have long admired what Duncan and the Oceanskies team have built. Their expertise in crew employment, payroll and registration is exceptional, and they join a Voly Crew team that already carries decades of experience. Between us, I do not believe there is better knowledge anywhere in yachting. Together we can build on the foundations Voly Crew and Oceanskies have each laid and move a great deal faster than either of us could alone.”

Founded in 2016 and headquartered near Manchester in the UK, Voly has offices in Guernsey, Southampton, Malta, Barcelona and Fort Lauderdale. Its technology is used on more than 1,700 vessels worldwide, and the group employs more than 200 people.

Oceanskies was founded in 2013 by Duncan Swanson, Adrian Ogier and Tom Becker. The business provides yacht and aircraft documentation, registration, crew employment and payroll services from offices in Guernsey, Jersey, Malta, the UK and Dubai.

Integration for crew employment

Screen showing diagram of payroll

Voly confirmed there will be no immediate operational changes for existing clients, with technical enhancements introduced as integration progresses.

“Nothing changes for Oceanskies’ clients today,” Flanagan says. “What changes is what becomes possible tomorrow – crew employment and registration expertise backed by a genuine technology platform, and one company that an owner or manager can hold accountable for the whole experience rather than one slice of it.

“This is another step in consolidating a fragmented industry into one dashboard and one solution that serves every part of the yachting ecosystem,” Flanagan adds. “We have further acquisitions in the pipeline, and the goal has not changed: one login, backed by great people and deep domain expertise, is exactly what this market needs.”

Investor perspective

“Voly is a category leader in a vertical that is mission-critical, highly regulated and still remarkably under-served by technology,” says Tom Matthews, partner at Magenta Partners. “This is the fourth acquisition we have supported since investing, and the pattern each time has been the same: a well-run specialist business, a clear product fit, and an integration playbook that works. Oceanskies is the most significant of the four. It brings a high-quality recurring revenue base, deepens an already strong position in crew services, and takes Voly close to a proposition no competitor in yachting can match.”

Voly remains committed to the ethos that has guided its growth: working closely with clients and crew to build the best possible solution for everyone in the yachting ecosystem.

“With more than 10,000 crew now administered under the Voly umbrella, continued investment in our crew solutions, in time, people and money, is an absolute priority,” Flanagan conludes.