Another Year of Tide-Turning Innovation
Written by Ryan Green
Alissa Peterson, cofounder and CEO, celebrates SeaAhead’s win as Startup Supporter of the Year at New England Clean Energy Center’s 14th Annual Green Future Gala on October 26, 2023.
The turn of a new year often prompts us to reflect on the progress we’ve made and identify what might lie ahead. In 2023, we celebrated our 5th year in business, continuing to build, catalyze, and invest in a thriving blue technology ecosystem.
A Look Back
Here are a few 2023 moments we'd like to cheer:
We were honored to be named "Startup Supporter of the Year" at New England Clean Energy Center's 14th Annual Green Future Gala.
We graduated our third BlueSwell Cohort of startups at the New England Aquarium Demo Day bringing together an engaged audience of entrepreneurs, investors, and sustainable ocean-minded collaborators. These companies are already making waves, such as Ocean Data Network, who celebrated the kickoff of a successful Hurricane Rapid Intensification Project and published a prominent scientific paper on Fishing Vessel Observation Progress in Africa.
Altogether, BlueSwell startups have now raised over $30M in equity and grants, with more to close early this year!
We completed a pilot program supporting startups in the Gulf of Mexico, graduating 6 companies and establishing lasting connections in the region.
We fostered the creation and placement of 80+ new jobs in the bluetech sector through our programs
BlueSwell Cohort IV joined our ecosystem and spent some valuable in-person time in the northeast, including Boston and Providence. Cohort member Vycarb, a water-based carbon removal solution, demonstrates the momentum these companies are gathering, as they secured their first customer, two MRV partnerships, and three locations where they can get their tech in the water.
Our Blue Angels have been diligently scoping groundbreaking solutions and have invested in nearly 30 companies to date.
We expanded our knowledge base, including the release of the whitepaper on Aquaculture Feed, with more to come in 2024 – stay tuned to see where this wave of change takes us.
Looking Forward
As important as it is to celebrate past accomplishments, SeaAhead is future focused. Behind the scenes, we are drumming up exciting new partnerships and pathways. Navigating uncharted waters can present challenges and unknowns, so we gathered some insights from our community into how 2024 might shape up for the blue sphere:
Aquaculture:
SeaAhead’s Principal, Luke Sawitsky, speaks about the company’s aquafeed innovation whitepaper written in partnership with the New England Aquarium at the Northeast Aquaculture Conference & Exposition (NACE) in Providence, Rhode Island on January 11, 2024. Photo credit: Beck Hayes
SeaAhead’s Luke Sawitsky noted some challenges the industry faces and the importance of 2024 for the sector.
“The aquaculture sector has experienced impressive growth over the past several years, however, sustainability and social license challenges have been mounting. If the industry continues to grow, it will need to find sustainable sources of raw materials to augment the current (fully exploited) supply of wild-caught fishmeal, fish oil, and commodity plant-based protein and lipid products (e.g. soy). Minimizing the impact of aquaculture on the local environment by controlling escapes, the spread of disease, habitat destruction, and nutrient pollution will also continue to be a core challenge to growth for many operators. Other aquaculture sectors such as macroalgae cultivation have also experienced significant growth, especially in North American and European markets. 2024 will be an important year for validating the attractiveness of value-added macroalgae products in areas such as human and animal nutrition, bio-based polymers, and carbon sequestration.”
Offshore Wind:
Drew Carey, left, moderates a panel of experts discussing biodiversity at SeaAhead’s Innovation in Offshore Wind event on November 29, 2023. Photo credit: Ryan Green
Drew Carey, Vice President of Americas for the Venterra Group, shared his thoughts on where this growing offshore wind industry is headed.
“Offshore wind industry will accelerate in 2024 after regrouping from inflation, supply chain constraints, and vacated power agreements. As inflation eases, states revise policies on procurement and BOEM accelerates approvals and lease sales expect to see a surge in growth of the supply chain for site assessment, foundation and cable design packages, and active installation. New Jones Act-compliant vessels are emerging (WTIVS, SOVs, and CTVs) and will anchor the US workforce and port development progression. The operations and maintenance sector has been very slow to grow but will do so as projects are certified and begin to deliver power to the grid. Innovations in grid transmission, cable connections, and power substations are critical to maintain this momentum. Leveraging AI within ocean modeling, data collection, and interpretation will support the increased use of ASVs, AUVs, gliders, and swarm robots. Potential innovations in underwater transmission of data could emerge and change the existing infrastructure.”
Two voices from the team at Ørsted also offered what they’re seeing for 2024 in innovation and offshore wind. First, Anthony Dvarskas, Biodiversity Lead for Offshore North America.
“Now is an exciting time for offshore wind innovations related to biodiversity. In 2024, I’m hopeful we will see advances in technology to detect, in real-time, species of concern, such as marine mammals, improvements in the ability to monitor changes in biodiversity within and around offshore wind sites, and better understanding of how novel materials composition and designs may enhance biodiversity at offshore wind sites, such as in cable and scour protection.”
Neil Hamel, Managing Director, Ørsted Ventures, also shared his thoughts.
“Despite the macroeconomic headwinds experienced last year, 2024 will be the year offshore wind really takes hold in the US, with South Fork Wind and Vineyard Wind coming online and increasing our national capacity from 42 MW to almost 1,000 MW. New state procurements could award up to 10 GW of additional new projects in the coming months, with more on the horizon as governors and state policymakers increase clean energy targets. In the US we’ll also begin to see IRA implementation and growth of new tax credit transfer markets, with the help of platforms like Crux, to enable and finance the energy transition. Growth of clean energy is moving forward, so if there are any startups that are ready at scale to help make offshore wind more efficient, please stand up!”
Artificial Intelligence:
The Chairman of our Board here at SeaAhead, Bob Geiman, who is well-versed in AI and emerging technology, noted “2024 will be the start of the shift away from the power of AI, and the associated hype that comes from a promising technology, to how we do actually derive value from AI. Applications, use cases and data sources will be the focus, not underlying AI models.” Artificial Intelligence is integral to consider as it has implications for other sectors due to the integration of AI into so many emerging blue technologies.
Maritime:
One of these such sectors is maritime. We turned to Jason Kelly, Executive Vice President and Board Member of Moran Shipping, to pose this question.
“Traditionally a technology laggard, a rapidly growing number in the Shipping industry are looking at open innovation as a tool to solve intractable industry problems, such as decarbonization, ship strikes and biofouling to name a few. New regulations, commercial opportunities, and increasing commitments to sustainability have been driving this over the last few years. Digitalization has shown great promise in improving safety, security, efficiency, and sustainability. 2024 should prove to be a noteworthy year as interconnected enterprise data solutions, along with the use of AI will catalyze impressive outcomes.”
Coastal Resilience:
Our friend, Fernando Bretos, program officer at The Ocean Foundation and an expert in all things coastal resilience, had some important insights for 2024.
“Climate change is affecting coastal communities at an unprecedented rate. Tropical storms in the Gulf of Mexico and eastern seaboard, massive rain events in the northeast and the slow creep of sea level rise is causing concern but also leading to much-needed innovation to protect habitats and infrastructure. The current El Niño pattern has led to historic marine heat waves in the southeast and US Caribbean where buoys are recording temperatures over 100F. The summer of 2023 may turn out to be the coolest summer for the rest of our lives. Coral reefs have reached their threshold and saw massive bleaching as a result. However, due to the widespread emergency the region is seeing new types of innovation in habitat propagation and more urgency for expanding natural and hybrid infrastructure. While the news from Dubai was positive, we need more innovation in adaptation especially in tropical and subtropical regions of the country that are being hit especially hard. New innovations in biomimicking surfaces and hybrid infrastructure are critical as well as scaling up the scope and resilience of habitat restoration.”
Final thoughts from SeaAhead:
Julia Pangan, SeaAhead’s BlueSwell program manager, chats with Cohort IV founders Joe Wheeler (middle) and Craig Harper (left) about their startup bluemvmt. Photo Credit: Allegro Photography LLC
Our co-founder and CEO, Alissa Peterson, shared her thoughts on the bluetech sector at large. “The world of bluetech and ocean innovation is, in some ways ancient and in others, nascent. With each new year, we all get to be a part of writing a future that functions in harmony with a thriving, biodiverse planet. The best part of my job is working with startups taking on this challenge as they secure their first customers. Our goal this year is to bring more capital into this space so that solutions we believe in can scale faster.”
With all this in mind, 2024 is already shaping up to be a full and impactful year. We can’t wait to see what’s next on the horizon.