The Blue Angels: Closing the Bluetech Investment Gap
Trends in land-based innovation are coming to the ocean sector. This presents investors with an opportunity to capture some of the biggest efficiency, data, AI and agtech investment opportunities while they are still at their nascent stages for ocean sector application. With a high density of bluetech assets, the Northeast is a global epicenter for bluetech innovation, which combines with SeaAhead’s relationships with investor groups, accelerators, incubators, research institutions, and industry to provide superb deal flow and informed investment diligence. The Blue Angels investor group was formed to leverage this combination of timing, location, and expertise into profitable early-stage investments and positive impact.
Indicative Bluetech Sector Growth
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) estimates the size of the Blue Economy at over $1T, and on track to double that by 2030. We see the strong underlying industry fundamentals across a variety of bluetech sectors:
The Living Ocean: The global aquaculture market is growing at >5% YOY and is projected to exceed $250B before the end of the decade.
Circular Economy: The $3B global biodegradable plastics market is expected to reach $6B by 2023, and there are significant opportunities for upcycling biological waste products in the fisheries and aquaculture supply chains.
Maritime & Shipping: 90% of global trade goods are transported by ships. The industry is under increasing compliance pressure in areas such as invasive species mitigation, and decarbonization, and is also rapidly exploring efficiency gains from digitization.
Coastal Resilience: State spending on storm defense is increasing. The City of Boston has identified 12,000 buildings at risk from potential sea-level rise, many in the redeveloped Seaport District.
Offshore Renewable Energy: Northeast states have offshore wind goals of 14.6 GW by 2035 with a supply chain spend of est. $70B, and the US broadly is on track to have 30GW of installed offshore wind by 2030. This will require 77,000 new jobs across the supply chain.
Ocean-based industries’ value-added is expected to double by 2030
Source: OECD (2016), The Ocean Economy to 2030, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264251724-en.
Startup Investment Growth
Bluetech is where cleantech and food & agtech were 10+ years ago, and these are now $10B+/year startup investment markets. Some indications of interest include:
Startup Wharf identified 85 early-stage shipping startups that raised $157M in a year.
Ynsect, using farmed insects as an alternative fish feed, has raised $189M.
Saildrone, a deep-water data collection vehicle has raised $88.5M.
Bluetech startups in the Northeast are attracting significant funding; Sea Machines
Robotics at $12M+ and Advanced Surface Technologies at $10M+ are two examples.
eFishery, an end-to-end aquaculture platform, recently closed a $90M Series C, the largest aquatech funding so far
Sunfire, an industrial electrolysis company focused on renewable hydrogen, recently closed a $215M Series D.
Filling the Gap: The Blue Angels
In response to the growing momentum behind bluetech and startup investment in the space, the Blue Angel investor group was established by SeaAhead to address a shortage in capital for early-stage bluetech companies. The group provides investment opportunities stemming from SeaAhead’s proprietary insights and market intelligence, a network of industry experts, and an extended community of start-ups and innovators. Additionally, rapid technological advances are enabling new business models that tackle ocean sustainability. We recognized a triple-bottom-line opportunity, where top-line market growth along with increasing environmental and social emphasis leads to return potential and positive impact.
Since its formation in 2020, the Blue Angels investor group has made investments in 13 companies across a variety of bluetech sectors:
Aquaculture and Mariculture
AKUA is a New-York City-based company creating plant-based alternative protein options using ocean-farmed macroalgae.
Oceanium, based in Scotland, is developing a line of products including nutraceuticals, supplements, bio-based materials, and more from sustainably-sourced seaweed processed by Oceanium using their proprietary methods and equipment
The Crop Project, a Brooklyn-based seaweed company is focused on building markets for regenerative crops to bolster local economies by providing scalable, flexible processing capabilities starting with macroalgae production in the Northeast
BioFeyn is an early-stage American biotech company that is creating nano-encapsulation solutions for aquafeed, minimizing nutrient leeching and maximizing feed utilization and performance
BetaHatch, an agtech startup from Washington state has developed a process that uses organic waste to ranch mealworms at scale for high-value protein to be used in aquaculture and other livestock applications
Pure Ocean Algae, an Ireland-based macroalgae company creating vertically integrated value chains for macro-algae and other marine resources with a focus on human and animal nutrition and health
BlueTrace, a Maine based software development company offers powerful traceability solutions for shellfish growers, wholesalers, distributors, and dealers
Ecological Remediation
Inversa Leathers, coming out of Florida, Inversa engineers eco-positive leather from invasive lionfish skin and is pioneering a new line of alternative exoitc leathers from invasive species targeting upmarket, ecologically conscious consumers
Coral Vita, based in the Bahamas, is in the business of coral restoration by culturing and proliferating coral fragments to be grown and out-planted into degraded reefs, restoring ecosystems, providing ecosystem services, and supporting local fisheries and hospitality industries
Maritime Shipping
CoLoadX, is a New York transportation, logistics, and storage company that utilizes a cargo visibility system and real-time rich data to provide instant search, booking, and tracking.
Fuel Trust, a maritime tech company out of Houston is on a mission to empower greener shipping fleets by validating decarbonization and compliance, and identifying potential fraud and risk within the fuel supply chain for commercial shipping vessels
Underwater Autonomy
Seatrec, a California-based company designs and manufactures energy harvesting solutions that generate electricity from naturally occurring temperature differences in ocean waters.
Fisheries Tech
Blue Ocean Gear, also out of California is developing high-tech buoys that can track gear in the marine environment. Locating fishing gear that has been lost or entangled in marine mammals is a win-win for fisherman and the environment, reducing costs for fishermen, lowering the environmental impact of their activities, and strengthening the social license of fishermen to operate in waters used by other human and animal stakeholders
Currently, the Angels have more than 50 members who are accredited investors, in addition to strategic partners and advisors who attend many meetings. The Blue Angels include financial professionals, former and current entrepreneurs, operators active in bluetech verticals such as shipping and aquaculture, and successful professionals who care about the challenges facing our oceans and technologies that could be deployed to create business solutions for them. While our angels come from a variety of backgrounds, they all share a passion for the Ocean and a belief that bluetech investing offers the opportunity for significant financial returns as well as positive environmental and social benefits.
The group was formed in February 2020 and since June of 2020, after switching to a virtual format due to the pandemic, the Blue Angels have met monthly, hearing pitches from over 35 companies and attracted funding for 13 of them across a variety of verticals. In addition to our monthly meetings, the Blue Angels can access a host of educational and networking programs organized by SeaAhead. This includes mentorship opportunities for companies in SeaAhead’s BlueSwell Incubator and broader startup network, access to the BlueSwell Demo Day, and education sessions such as our upcoming “Exploring the Seascape of Bluetech Investment” on Tuesday, April 14th at 4pm ET.
The Blue Angels is run by Donna Hazard and Luke Sawitsky, with assistance from Aly Rose and other members of the SeaAhead team. Donna is a General Partner & Board Member of SeaAhead. Before joining SeaAhead she was the Chair of the Board and Interim CEO of the New England Aquarium. Prior to that she was the Co-founder of biotech firm Exact Sciences, which reached a $21B market cap. She holds a BA from Princeton, and an MBA and MS from Harvard.
Luke is SeaAhead’s Senior Investment Associate. He has a deep background in fisheries and Aquaculture, having worked at large seafood processing operations, as a salmon buyer in rural Alaska, as a business development lead for an aquaculture feed startup, and as an impact investor in the fishing permit and quota space prior to joining SeaAhead. He holds a BA from Northwestern and an MBA and MS from the University of Michigan.
The Blue Angels is open to accredited investors or their designated representatives, as well as invited guests. All investors must meet the IRS accreditation requirements. We seek angel investors with strategic experience in bluetech sectors as well as investors who are simply interested in this nascent sector. If you are interested in joining the Angels, please contact Donna Hazard at donna.hazard@sea-ahead.com.