This summer, Dutch yard Oceanco was sold to American video game developer and businessman Gabe Newell. At the opening of the 2025 Monaco Yacht Show, he spoke for the first time about what drew him to Oceanco and what success will look like in the future.
Newell is best known as a technologist, entrepreneur, and founder of Valve Corporation. But his involvement with Oceanco began not in business, but in experience – as a client. During the design and build of the 111m/364ft Leviathan, Gabe discovered an energizing partnership that organically transitioned into something more. “When you’re building a yacht with Oceanco, it’s a very collaborative and enjoyable process – they make you feel like you are part of the team,” Newell explained. “I started to have conversations with Marcel and his team, and with Dr. Barwani, about whether I could help move the organization forward if I took a more direct role in ownership.”
Newell is part of the team, not just an investor. Looking forward, he is not proposing any immediate change. Oceanco’s culture, strategy and priorities remain firmly in place, while growth is about quality and impact, not scale: “Initially, my involvement is just about supporting the things the organization already knew it wanted to do,” he emphasized.
Acquisition of Alewijnse
One of those priorities was the recent acquisition of system integrator Alewijnse, which now joins Oceanco, Lateral, Mercury and Aluship within the Oceanco Group. Newell described the move as part of a wider focus on strategic expansion, creating opportunities for more integration and closer collaboration across industries. Longer-term, he sees potential to share his background in technology development. “Just about everything I’ve been involved in over the years has moved some aspect of technology forward in a way that benefits customers,” he explained. “Over time, we will start to identify interesting technologies, prototype them and move them into production. But for now, there’s important work to do simply supporting what Oceanco already does brilliantly.”
Speaking from the unusual position of being both a shareholder and a client, Newell explained how he sees Oceanco as a business. “We are a customer-focused yacht builder,” he said. His ambition is to help Oceanco increase the long-term value of its yachts for owners and their teams, such as shaping future projects that build on the achievements of Leviathan by pushing further into crew-centric design.
