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 October of 2013 Marport Deep Sea Technology was acquired by Airmar Technology. Airmar began collaborating with Marport approximately eight years ago and has a history of working together to develop products that have been successfully commercialized. Airmar and Marport will continue to jointly develop new products in the same manner, but will focus heavily on bringing new products to market quickly, improving lead times for existing products, and improving distribution channels.