One could say the sun had set on Jan Koum’s 99.9-metre Feadship, delivered in 2020, when the tech tycoon took delivery of a new $330 million Feadship, also called Moonrise, in 2025. But that is the beauty of the moon, it disappears only to appear again. And now the moon is shining bright again in all its pearly glory. The 327-footer Moonrise has been sold by Burgess to a new secretive buyer who perhaps shares a penchant for understated elegance, much like the WhatsApp co-founder himself.
Koum commissioned his first Moonrise in early 2017 for a reported $220 million and patiently waited three years for the incredible ship to take shape, with its sharp, clean silhouette while also claiming, at the time, the title of the largest superyacht by waterline length ever built in the Netherlands.
This stellar vessel was listed for an asking price of $372 million, according to SuperYacht Times, roughly $152 million more than her reported build cost after Koum had used the yacht for more than six years. It was always privately owned, featuring exterior design by De Voogt Naval Architects and interiors by Rémi Tessier, while De Voogt also handled the naval architecture. With a new owner now at the helm, it is possible the yachting world may yet get a new entrant to the charter scene.
The 3,945 GT vessel fit easily into a billionaire ecosystem, from a foredeck helipad enabling speedy entries and exits for a man, worth $17 billion, whose one minute costs more than $650, to generous leisure spaces designed for slower pleasures. For Koum and his friends’ relaxation, the pleasure craft was outfitted with a large aft beach club, as well as gym and wellness areas. The maritime marvel accommodated 16 guests across eight cabins, in addition to a crew of 32.
Yet the vessel’s real signature was not any single amenity but its silence. Feadship poured unusual effort into noise and vibration attenuation, and the yard describes her as quiet even by its own exacting standards. Koum’s obsession with quiet is well documented, and it carried straight into his successor yacht, which pushed the acoustic engineering even further. In that sense Moonrise sits within a distinct Feadship lineage: Steve Jobs’ Venus, also built by the Dutch yard, was conceived around a near-monastic hush, with family cabins deliberately separated for acoustic isolation. Koum’s Moonrise is often framed as the engineering-led sequel to that idea, a comparison that speaks to how a certain kind of tech founder treats silence as the ultimate luxury.
At what price Koum’s Moonrise ultimately sold remains unconfirmed. But one thing is certain, despite moving on to a slightly bigger and better Moonrise, Koum effectively confirmed that he was leaving behind a near-perfect yacht, so much so that he barely changed anything in its successor (also the winner of the 2021 World Superyacht Awards for Best Displacement Motor Yacht of 3,000 GT and above).
The new Moonrise, 331 feet long, is really a more perfected second draft of the same idea, carrying the same general DNA. The most obvious difference is the absence of the visible satellite domes, with Starlink receivers instead integrated into the superstructure. The sundeck is more commodious, the yacht is quieter, more technologically advanced, and offers Koum a sanctuary of his own in the form of a dedicated owner’s deck.
On the performance front, the vessel is powered by twin MTU engines, allowing her to reach a top speed of 18.5 knots while offering a long-range capability of 6,000 nautical miles, enough to cross from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean without refueling. It is not surprising Moonrise already found a new owner having spent only six months on the brokerage market. With the summer season ahead, her new owner will soon have every opportunity to test her prowess.
