Seatrec Raises $2M Seed Round to Commercialize Technology that Harvests Clean, Renewable Energy from the Ocean
Today, we're very excited to announce a $2M seed round to help us commercialize our energy harvesting technology that generates electricity from the temperature differences in the ocean. We are expanding our initial market of oceanographic research and defense to other Blue Economy areas such as aquaculture and maritime transportation.
Our funding round was led by previous investor Dr. Norge Larson with participation from Sunstone Management, Frontier Angels, SeaAhead’s Blue Angels, and returning investors from Pasadena Angels. Dr. Larson will bring his remarkable background in blue tech and business experience to Seatrec’s board as a director. Sunstone’s John Shen will join the board as an observer.
“We’ve proven the value of our clean, renewable energy harvesting technology with pilot sales to our beachhead market of research and defense,” said Dr. Yi Chao, founder and CEO of Seatrec. “Now, we’re ready to scale our commercial sales and expand the reach of our technology to power key applications in the Blue Economy like aquaculture and maritime transportation.”
Seatrec is the first company to produce a portable power system that harvests energy from naturally occurring temperature differentials. Its patented thermal energy harvesting technology provides infinite power and is currently used to run oceanographic equipment, including autonomous profiling floats and underwater gliders. With Seatrec’s technology, researchers can extend the life of the equipment, power more sensors, and enable faster data collection at reduced cost in an environmentally friendly manner.
Seatrec’s foothold in scientific research opens the door to collecting vast amounts of undersea data that can help increase the accuracy of forecasting hurricanes that are responsible for an estimated $54B in economic losses per year, as well as optimizing shipping routes to save millions of tons of fuel.
“Seatrec’s technology will power underwater robots to monitor the condition and health of the ocean,” explained Dr. Norge Larson, an oceanographer and entrepreneur. “This financing round helps Seatrec mature its products for several ocean applications. We are pleased to support this important work along with other key investors.”
The Blue Economy - sustainable, ocean-centric commerce - is expected to generate more than $3T in global economic impact and support more than 40M jobs around the world, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Aquaculture alone is projected to grow into a $274B per year market by 2025.
“Sunstone has a long history of identifying and investing in industry disruptors and cutting edge technology,” stated John Shen, founding partner of Sunstone Management and Seatrec's newest board member. “This innovative, sustainable technology is poised to rapidly revolutionize the Blue Economy with our enthusiastic support.”
Seatrec’s funding news comes on the heels of two recent $10,000 prizes under the Powering the Blue Economy: Ocean Observing Prize administered by the U.S. Department of Energy and NOAA. The company shared one of the prizes with Northrop Grumman for a joint Mission Unlimited UUV Station concept.
About Seatrec
Seatrec designs and manufactures energy harvesting systems that generate electricity from naturally occurring temperature differences in ocean waters. This renewable energy can be used to power deep water oceanographic research equipment such as floats, gliders and Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs), resulting in the most scalable, cost-effective deep ocean data collection possible. Incorporated in 2016 by CEO, Dr. Yi Chao, Seatrec’s technology originated at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, to provide clean power for remote off-grid locations. The company is headquartered in Monrovia, CA. Visit us at www.seatrec.com and @seatrecinc.
About Dr. Norge Larson
Dr. Norge Larson is a strategic advisor and previous investor to Seatrec. Dr. Larson was president of Sea-Bird Electronics until its acquisition by Danaher, one of the first successful exits for ocean tech companies. Larson joined Sea-Bird after obtaining his doctorate in oceanography from the University of Washington and helped establish the Sea-Bird Scientific as the gold standard for oceanographic sensors through the acquisition of Oregon ocean tech company Wet Labs and Canada’s Satlantic.
About Sunstone Management
Sunstone Management, with its subsidiary Sunstone Venture Capital Fund, is a diversified private capital management and investment firm offering comprehensive wealth management solutions to high net worth clients worldwide. Focusing on investments in U.S. based small businesses and lower-middle markets, its offerings are carefully structured to meet targeted investor goals ranging from short term senior debt products to longer-term, equity, growth capital, and venture capital investment strategies. For more information visit: sunstoneinvestment.com.
Here is the official press release.
Seatrec, Northrop Grumman Receive DARPA Award for Developing Deep Sea Robots to Study Climate Change and Support Blue Economy
Seatrec, Northrop Grumman Receive DARPA Award for Developing Deep Sea Robots That Can Study Climate Change and Support Blue Economy
Small Business Innovation Research Phase II is next step toward commercialization of fast-diving, autonomous robots that are powered by Aluminum fuel
Seatrec, a renewable energy company that harvests energy from temperature differences in the environment, announced today that it has been awarded a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). As part of the grant, Seatrec has assembled a multi-disciplinary team of scientists and engineers and subcontracted Northrop Grumman to support the development of a float that can dive to 1000 meters at a speed of 1 meter per second, a factor of 10 faster than the current state-of-the-art.
Dr. Yi Chao, Founder and CEO of Seatrec, is the Principal Investigator on the grant and built the company’s technology he started at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“Today’s buoyancy engines are too small to support such a fast profiling speed. If we increase the size of the buoyancy engine and add a propeller, the required 1 m/s speed can be achieved, however, a significantly larger battery would be necessary in order to maintain long endurance. We’re excited to partner with Professor Doug Hart from MIT to explore the use of aluminum fuel, when mixed with water, to create the extra buoyancy required to achieve a 10x increase of the profiling speed,” said Chao.
“Aluminum, long used as a solid rocket propellant, is among the most energy-dense materials known but has found little use in other applications due to difficulties in harnessing its power. My group at MIT has developed a method to safely create a liquid slurry that can be reacted with water on contact releasing hydrogen gas and heat. In this project, the hydrogen gas will be used to generate positive buoyancy to achieve an order of magnitude increase in profiling speed,” said Hart.
“Ocean data needs a sea change to help navigate the warming world,” stated in a recent article in Nature, “The ocean covers about 70 percent of Earth’s surface, regulates the climate and it’s home to countless species of fish, a major source of protein for more than one billion people. It is now under threat from climate change, overfishing and pollution.” This technological advancement will certainly accelerate the evolution of ocean observation and monitoring.
“There are simply no other energy harvesting solutions available like Seatrec. The synergy of these innovative technologies and our experience in developing military-grade solutions will result in a very promising offering to better observe our oceans,” said Brian Theobald, Chief Engineer for Northrop Grumman Undersea Systems.
About Seatrec
Seatrec designs and manufactures energy harvesting systems that generate electricity from naturally occurring temperature differences in ocean waters. This renewable energy can be used to power deep water oceanographic research equipment such as floats, gliders, and Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs), resulting in the most scalable, cost-effective deep ocean data collection possible. Incorporated in 2016 by CEO, Dr. Yi Chao, Seatrec’s technology originated at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, to provide clean power for remote off-grid locations. The company is headquartered in Monrovia, CA. Visit us at www.seatrec.com and @seatrecinc.
Media contact
Marta Bulaich
Head of Marketing
marta@seatrec.com
+1 415-816-1665
These Underwater Drones Use Water Temperature Differences To Recharge
Recharging Ocean Drones with Renewable Energy
Check out the interview with our CEO and Founder, Dr. Yi Chao, with Jeremy Hsu in IEEE Spectrum. In the interview, Yi talks about how Seatrec uses thermal energy harvesting to recharge ocean floats and gliders with renewable energy generated by ocean temperature differences. A summary is below. Click here for the full article.
Thermal Energy Harvesting
Today, most floats are treated as disposable devices due to power and financial challenges. Power challenges arise because the lithium-ion battery energy is limited. Once the battery dies, the float and accompanying potentially toxic battery drop to the bottom of the ocean. Financial limitations are in play because oceanographers lack the funding to deploy ships to retrieve these derelict floats. Yi's goal is to leverage Seatrec's thermal energy harvesting systems to eliminate toxic battery disposal. Additionally, with our technology, we can improve the durability of ocean drones and improve the data collection and frequency of profiling.
Underwater Charging Station for UUVs
Seatrec is collaborating with defense giant Northrop Grumman to develop an underwater recharging station for ocean robots. Northrop has created a self-insulating electrical connector capable of operating while the powered electrical contacts are submerged. Seatrec and Northrop won a $10,000 prize under the Powering the Blue Economy: Ocean Observing Prize administered by the U.S. Department of Energy and NOAA to develop this technology.
Yi is most excited about collecting as much oceanographic data as possible and exploring other blue economy ventures such as aquaculture (underwater farms) and other subsurface applications.
Northrop Grumman And Seatrec Recognized For Self-Sustaining UUV Charging Station
Northrop Grumman and Seatrec, Inc. were recently winners of an Explorer Prize, which concluded the Discovery competition phase of the Powering the Blue Economy™ Ocean Observing Prize, sponsored by the Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Read more on Northrop Grumman's news site.
Seatrec Demonstrates Energy-Harvesting Solution for Ocean Instruments
Seatrec demonstrated that profiling instruments used for ocean exploration can be improved by pairing them with the SL1 thermal engine. A successful field trial was completed with Sea-Bird Scientific Navis autonomous profiling float mated to the Seatrec SL1. The SL1 harvests energy from temperature differentials in the ocean and converts it to stored electrical energy. Read more at Ocean News.
