Meet the Ecopreneur Network Class of 2023

Today, Sustainable Ocean Alliance is proud to announce the inaugural group of Ecopreneur Network members—the Class of 2023!

In July, we launched the evolution of SOA’s startup programming: the Ecopreneur Network. Building on the success of the Ocean Solutions Accelerator, this new program offers life-long support for ocean startups to secure funding opportunities, forge connections, and access critical resources to drive their ventures towards transformative impact for our ocean.

Today, we are thrilled to announce the inaugural cohort—our Class of 2023!

This group of 11 incredible ocean startups joins SOA’s existing community of ecopreneurs to bring us to 56 startups in our network. Read more about the new additions below, and explore our full roster of world-changing ventures here. 

FlexSea | London, UK

FlexSea develops novel seaweed derived biomaterials to replace single use plastics in various verticals. Their home-compostable materials are derived from naturally occurring seaweed biopolymers from widely cultivated red seaweed strains.

Ittinsect | Rome, Italy

Ittinsect is a biotech startup producing sustainable, high-performance feed ingredients through the biotechnological treatment of novel raw ingredients including insects, microalgae, and agricultural by-products, in line with the principles of circular economics. A fish raised with Ittinsect-based feeds has healthier digestion and improved growth performance at no extra cost for the fish farmer.

Photon Marine | Portland, Oregon, USA

Photon Marine is developing the world’s most powerful and intelligent electric outboard motor system and fleet management software, tailored to commercial boat fleets in tourism, transportation, and mariculture industries. Their solution is a drop-in electric outboard motor system that replaces traditional ICE motors on both new and existing vessels without compromising on performance or reliability.

Reefgen | San Francisco, California, USA

Reefgen has developed multiple robotic nearshore restoration platforms to plant coral and seagrasses, with the ability to develop the required 30x-75x productivity- rate enhancements over manual planting necessary for humankind to meet the challenge of restoring coastal life support ecosystems.

Stream Ocean | Zurich, Switzerland

Stream Ocean's mission is to help anyone working in the ocean to monitor their impact on marine biodiversity.

TONTOTON | Sihanoukville, Cambodia

TONTOTON is an environmental impact program focused on collecting and treating mismanaged, hard-to-recycle plastic in highly polluted coastal villages of Cambodia. Their mission is to reduce plastic leakage through plastic action financing while promoting waste segregation in households and businesses and collecting mismanaged plastic.

Urchinomics | Ijmuiden, Netherlands

Urchinomics helps restore kelp forests by paying divers to remove overgrazing sea urchins from urchin barrens, ranching the urchins in proprietary land-based aquaculture systems, and converting the urchins from an ecological nuisance into premium seafood that we sell to high end distributors and restaurants globally.

uWare Robotics | Brussels, Belgium

uWare utilizes the latest advancements in Robotics, AI, and IoUT to develop cost-effective, easy-to-use robotic platforms enabling autonomous intervention in underwater environments.

Alora | Kitchener, Ontario, Canada

 Alora, formerly known as Agrisea, was built to solve world hunger by evolving sustainable food systems through ocean agriculture. They have developed a way to grow crops in high salt conditions such as salt soils or coastal ocean waters.

Agriloops | Rennes, France

Agriloops develops aquaponic systems to reinvent aquaculture to produce eco-responsible and healthy food products. The company develops innovative aquaponic production units in salt water to facilitate sustainable agricultural production, enabling the production of natural and fresh shrimps and vegetables.

Bound4Blue | Barcelona, Spain

Bound4Blue has developed a foldable and autonomous wingsail system to be integrated onto a wide range of vessels. The system has been conceived as a complementary propulsion system, which produces effective thrust from existing winds, reducing the main engine power required, thus delivering fuel consumption and pollutant emissions reductions of up to 40%.

Hoping for your chance to join the Network? Stay tuned: the Ecopreneur Network will continue to grow. Look out for our Class of 2024 application cycle launch.