Rising Tide, Emerging Narwhals: Alexander Shadbolt on Scaling Innovation in the Ocean Economy
This past May, global innovators, investors, and ocean tech pioneers gathered in Bodø, Norway for Tech Tour Ocean 2025 — a culmination of our flagship investment programme supporting innovation in the blue economy. With over 30 selected startups, 40+ seasoned investors, and 100+ curated one-on-one meetings, the event served as a launchpad for scalable, sustainable solutions addressing critical challenges in our oceans.
In this exclusive interview, we sit down with one of the event’s most compelling speakers, Alex Shadbolt from Future Planet Capital — a firm at the forefront of impact-led, science-driven investment. We explore what it takes to build “narwhals” — a fitting moniker for ocean sector unicorns — and how this rising tide of ocean-based innovation is reshaping global markets, from carbon capture and aquaculture to green maritime technologies and marine data solutions.
Whether you’re an early-stage founder, a climate-focused investor, or part of a corporate sustainability team, this in-depth interview offers actionable insight into the fast-evolving future of ocean innovation.
TT: How do you define the "blue economy" from a venture capital perspective, and why is it becoming a priority for impact-led investors like Future Planet Capital?
AS: Fundamentally, the ocean is indispensable to life on earth. It covers 70% of the planet. It produces 50% of the world’s oxygen and it absorbs about one third of CO2 emissions; captures 90% of excess heat. And if you were to value the natural capital within it, you’re looking at about $24 trillion of asset natural value. It’s also the medium through which 90% of trade flows. And covering 2/3 of of the planet, it is underfunded at the moment and it is underutilized. So less than 1% of climate finance goes to the ocean and the UNSDG #14: Life Below Water is the least funded of all the global goals. Oceans are facing severe degradation and there is not enough money going to solve the challenges that exist within the blue economy, addressing life below water.
But that’s the ‘doom and gloom’… and what you have is actually a huge untapped opportunity. If you leverage the ocean scale, then ocean-based solutions can close up to 35% of the global emissions gap for the 1.5°C pathway, which you know we’re currently overshooting. It includes rapidly growing and profitable areas: offshore renewables, aquaculture, marine carbon removal, low-carbon maritime transport. These are all really exciting areas for innovation – from food security, through energy to carbon removal – this is a multi-trillion dollar platform for innovation. So that’s the wider investment context. Why is it exciting now and why is it exciting for VCs and investors focused on early stage innovation? Well, let’s start with this – why are people building in this space? First of all, you’ve got huge legacy systems that exist in current ocean economies – from shipping through to offshore operation, you’ve got these massive legacy systems in which many businesses still rely on clipboards, Windows 99 and literally pen and paper to tick boxes. You’ve got large industry incumbents, which are typically very slow-moving, and are now having to respond rapidly to changing regulation. So they are primed for disruption, and you also have a real public sentiment push these large incumbents and slow-moving industry to move away from typical “business-as-usual” pollution and climate harm, and they must pivot fast. So this is a prime inflection point for entrepreneurs to come in and leverage advancements in AI robotics, distributed energy and subsea autonomy and build new categories in carbon removal, ocean data, digital ports and circular marine economies. So you’re seeing the breeding ground for innovation backed by a growing ecosystem of smart capital, strategic partners and institutional accelerators. What we’re seeing is a really exciting growth of mature investment in the early stages, accelerators and seed funds which are working really hard at the early stages when there’s more work to be done, the seed to Series A stage. Once you pass that Series A stage, the need is to provide scale up capital that a lot of these ocean solutions need because many of them are hardware and capital intensive, so need a lot of money in order to scale up. So that’s for a bit of context. There are some areas which you can get really excited about.
Of course, this is more on the academic side of things, but also – emotionally – there are visceral reactions to damage to our ocean ecosystems and our coastal economies. People really feel strongly about the protection of oceans, as the ocean is the forgotten piece of climate change… a forgotten area that requires immediate attention. I grew up by the sea and grew up sailing, so I happened to come full circle and start investing in the oceans by no kind of targeted effort on my part… I fell back into it. It’s something that sits very close to many people’s hearts, but also is critical to so many people’s lives and livelihoods – all of those people who live in coastal colonies or within close proximity to these coastal ecosystems.
TT: At Future Planet Capital, you're known for connecting with innovation from top research centers. How does that global academic network influence your ocean-related investment strategy?
AS: Future Planet Capital was founded on the idea that the way to solve global challenges was finding the brightest minds, and then channelling institutional capital to those. And there are incredibly high densities of very smart people solving difficult challenges in these clusters and networks of innovation and research that typically form around universities. So what we’re seeing, especially in the blue economy, is a lot of companies spinning out from research centres, be that the National Oceanography Centre over here in the UK, or the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution or Scripps Institution of Oceanography over in the States. Lots of really data-rich, IP-heavy kind of research projects that are slowly beginning to find their commercial application and spinning out of these institutes are really pursuing a commercial mode – because there is increasing demand from those legacy incumbent industries for agile innovation to solve their challenges. This could relate to decarbonising maritime (MCDR), or marine carbon dioxide removal monitoring. It has proved a really useful deal flow pipeline for us and allows us also to compare across regions, as we are a global fund investing across geographies. So being able to benchmark a company spinning out from Caltech, like Captura – against a company that’s spinning out of the work at a National Oceanography Centre, for example – is super important for us.
TT: In your Tech Tour Ocean 2025 talk, you're addressing the idea that "a rising tide lifts all boats." Can you unpack what that means in terms of building scalable solutions in the ocean tech sector?
AS: The “rising tide” metaphor describes that we are seeing a maturing blue economy. You’re getting first-time funds raised, then follow on secondary funds, from the first instances of big capital-returning blue economy companies. So it is an industry that is maturing, with repeat funders and specialist funders, that are operating in this space and achieving financial outcomes. We are beginning to see those ocean unicorns be seeded – you can call them narwhals, if you wish. But it’s still key that we need DPI and venture capital. We need distributions to paid income and the Limited Partners, who give us money, need to get their money back. This is why we really need to focus on moving from the early stage. I think there’s been amazing progress in the last two to three years to that scale-up funding.
So what do you need to be aware of, if you’re building in the scale-up, post-Series-A blue ocean space? You need to be ready for a lot of these startups to be hardware-heavy and infrastructure-heavy. There are going to be capital-intensive pilots, high regulatory burden, the need to get certifications and permits, and there is also going to be large-scale physical deployment. You’re going to have very expensive first-of-a-kind systems, that need to be funded. And so understanding how to build that funding environment for these startups is key. It is important to engage strategic investors, who typically have deep pockets and can do the kind of project financing which is required – and will also be first customer. They are really powerful partners to have. If you get the right strategic on board, they’re not going to throttle the pace of innovation, if they’re sat around a board table with another strategic or, importantly – you can build the competitive tension in the room, so that you’re not beholden to one group. And that is the role of the financial VC – to think, together with the board and founders, as companies scale, how do you build a really strategic network of funders and first customers. Because there comes a point where venture capital can only do so much, and really large-scale capital is needed to scale globally and ensure that the deep environmental and social impacts, that a lot of these companies will have, are felt. I think that is a key piece as well, in addition to the founding team just being ready for longer commercial cycles with multiple stakeholders. It’s a very fragmented industry that we work in, the ocean space. Added to that is the fact that you’re working in possibly the harshest environment that you could build a company in – the ocean is pretty unforgiving. So just keep at it – keep that execution and have a supportive, value-adding team around you. That includes the people that are funding you, not just the team that are founding the business.
TT: What are some of the most exciting or promising areas within the ocean sector you’re currently watching — whether that’s sustainable aquaculture, carbon capture, or seagrass restoration?
AS: Previously we’d gotten very excited around the direct ocean carbon capture piece and built an investment thesis up and down the supply chain – not just looking at direct ocean carbon capture technology, but thinking about carbon sequestration downstream. So what do you do, once you’ve captured this carbon? How do you store it, ensuring that is millennial, high-quality storage? And on the side of upstream, how do we monitor the carbon that we’ve taken out of the ocean? So we’ve built an investment thesis, working from monitoring of carbon dioxide removal with a company, Aquatic Labs out of MIT in the States, through to our direct ocean carbon capture company Captura, who is doing the removal; and then we’re looking at 44.01 Technologies out of Oman, who are doing the sequestration and permanent mineralisation of CO2. So that was a really exciting space for us, and continues to be. Regardless of geopolitical instability or changing opinions on green and climate, what you’re seeing is still a really strong commitment from large corporates and multinationals to fund this space. There are offtakes being announced every day. Captura just secured their 30,000 carbon credit offtake with Mitsui O.S.K. Lines (MOL). We are really optimistic about that. I think decarbonisation of shipping is going to be a huge area going forward in the next 12-24 months, and obviously beyond. You’ve got the ultimate goal of hydrogen and alternative fuels, but in the meantime you’ve got some really exciting companies that are working toward 10-15% fuel savings and CO2 reduction outcomes by, for example, using micro-bubbling to reduce drag or utilising smart use of kites and sails to increase wind-assisted propulsion (WASPs). You’ve got companies making drop in fuels that qualify for the International Maritime Organization’s most recent rulings and regulations.
So this is an evolving space. There are so many 10-15-20% reductions, cost savings and benefits that can be made in the meantime, while we build towards those ultimate step changes of total alternative fuels, as we start to build that infrastructure. That entire value chain is going to be a really exciting space.
TT: Finally, what makes Tech Tour Ocean in Bodø a must-attend for entrepreneurs and investors working to shape the future of the oceans?
AS: Tech Tour Ocean is a great mix of critical stakeholders – it embodies the really strong network of not just funders and founders, but also other kinds of stakeholders that you need, in order to support a successful business in this space. You need corporate engagement, you also need those groups that are going to give non-diluted capital. Public-private partnership is key. And there is lots of non-diluted capital to be accessed, in public and government commitments made to moving towards a sustainable blue economy. Over the last two years that I have been involved with Tech Tour Ocean, the increasing sophistication of the startups that we see applying is a really nice indicator that, clearly, we’re doing something right when it comes to the coaching and selection of companies. That is probably the one thing that Tech Tour does extremely well – having such a depth of investor expertise, advice panels, coaches, mentors.
Almost one-to-one coaching for the startups that are selected, which means that you know those groups that make it out to Norway aren’t just going to have an amazing time, meet amazing people and some amazing food and scenery. They’re going to have real meaningful one-on-one interaction with investors.
As the blue economy matures, we’re witnessing a shift from fragmented early-stage experimentation to cohesive, capital-intensive scale-up opportunities. Ocean-focused startups are no longer just bold ideas — they are commercially viable ventures addressing everything from maritime decarbonization to marine biodiversity restoration.
What emerged clearly at Tech Tour Ocean 2025 is that success in this space requires more than technology. It demands deep partnerships across research, regulation, funding, and industry. As Alexander Shadbolt so aptly put it, this is a “multi-trillion-dollar platform for innovation” — one where impact and return can rise together.
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