Founders' Story: Gadi Ruschin
How does someone devote their life to mastering the complexities of international shipping? My origin story starts in Tel Aviv, Israel, after joining my family’s import business. We sourced garments, fabrics, and yarns from different production centers around the world and followed up the entire production from the sample to the shipment. Soon after I joined the business, I founded and managed the Chinese operation in Shanghai which opened my eyes to the complexities of trade and trade finance.
Then came my discovery of the blockchain.
After spending two years digging deep into potential applications of these nascent decentralized technologies, I founded WAVE BL with Or Garbash & Yair Sappir. When we started the company in 2015, the blockchain space included mostly cryptocurrencies. We were one of the only companies that took this technology and applied it to the real world - trade digitization. As the CEO and the business lead of the company, I built our way into shipping and developed the strategy for network creation, which demanded understanding the industry needs, building the right product, and ensuring its adoption through different incentives and unique bootstrapping strategies.
We were one of the only companies that took this technology and applied it to the real world - trade digitization.
After mapping and understanding its internal dynamics I was amazed by this industry. Shipping and logistics are very complex and include multiple layers that need to be perfectly synchronized in order for trade to work. Many people are unaware of the existence of this massive world of moving parts that’s global in scale, but microscopic in terms of coordination, margins, and punctuality. I found it fascinating.
WAVE BL became the leading paperless solution for trade and trade finance. The network included thousands of companies, banks, logistics companies, and most importantly, over 50% of ocean carriers. As we grew, we were required to negotiate the demands of a booming business: how to build a team, how to fundraise and find appropriate product-market fit, and much more. I stayed motivated by reminding myself that trade digitization affects everything and everyone.
During my time at WAVE BL, I became a father to three amazing kids, and my concern for their future on this planet redirected my attention to the climate crisis. In late 2021, I decided to take a step back from shipping digitization and look for a solution. Over the coming months, I met with fantastic entrepreneurs in the climate tech space. Although I was intrigued by their devotion and insight, it wasn’t until I connected with Peter Godart and learned about his technology that I turned my focus to a high GHG-polluting problem with currently no green energy solution: energy transportation. Transporting fossil fuels is integral to the infrastructure of some of the largest industries in the world, and is a major bottleneck for the green energy revolution. As Peter and I continued discussing how his technology had the potential to economically decarbonize industries like shipping, I saw how my set of skills and experience could support this mission.
Peter and I formed a partnership with a bold and urgent mission: decarbonize the most polluting industries.
