Blue economy
How do we see what lives in the ocean, before it is gone?
You cannot protect what you cannot see. Sensing comes first.
Oceantech covers the technologies that help us understand, monitor and protect marine ecosystems. The ocean is Earth's second lung, and the base of a blue economy worth more than $3 trillion a year.
Offshore wind, cables and seabed mining are scaling. The pivotal challenge is to grow them without damaging the ecosystems they rely on. That needs reliable, continuous data on what lives where, and today that data barely exists.
We see sensing as the first layer of the blue economy. Whoever measures biodiversity cheaply and at scale becomes useful to regulators, offshore developers, insurers and conservation funders alike.
- 1
Start with the pressure
Five human pressures drive ocean decline. Each one creates a need to measure.
- 2
Look at the technology
eDNA, robotics, remote sensing and coral tech each see a different layer of the ocean.
- 3
Check who pays
Regulation and offshore development are the likeliest buyers. Many sensing startups still sell mostly to research and NGOs.
A vast system, barely observed
The scale of the ocean is the reason this sector exists. Its state is the reason it is urgent.
Of the globe is ocean. About 90% of that surface remains unexplored.
Of human CO₂ emissions absorbed by the ocean.
More than 5% of global GDP comes from the blue economy.
Of fish stocks are overexploited.
Of marine habitats are in poor condition.
Of coral reefs face thermal stress. A third of marine mammals and corals are threatened.
An ecosystem this large and this stressed cannot be monitored by research vessels alone. The gap between what is at stake and what we measure is the opportunity.
From exploration to exploitation
Ocean technology followed a clear path: explore, extract, regulate, and now protect.
- 1950s1
Exploration
Early oceanography and the first deep-sea expeditions open the seabed to science.
- 1970s2
Industrialisation
Offshore oil and gas drive a wave of underwater engineering.
- 2000–013
Rules for the seabed
The International Seabed Authority sets the first regimes for exploring deep-sea minerals.
- 2000s4
Digital ocean
Satellites, sensors and genomics make large-scale monitoring possible.
- Today5
Growth, with limits
Offshore wind is targeting 18 GW by 2035 and subsea cables keep spreading. France 2030 commits €350M to seabed exploration, and the UN Ocean Conference (Nice, June 2025) put the ocean on the political agenda.
The pivotal challenge is to balance offshore growth with protecting ecosystems. Investors can be enablers by funding the tools that make that balance measurable.
Life began here. We know little of it.
Life appeared in the ocean about 3.8 billion years ago. About a quarter of all species live there, yet fewer than 280,000 marine species have been identified, around 13% of the total.
Overexploitation
Fishing beyond what stocks can replace.
Climate change
Warming, marine heatwaves and shifting species ranges.
Acidification
Absorbed CO₂ lowers pH. The 2024 Planetary Health Check flagged it as a boundary already crossed.
Pollution
Plastics, chemicals, noise and runoff.
Habitat loss
Coastal development, trawling and offshore infrastructure.
With 9.7 billion people expected by 2050, pressure on the ocean will only grow. Each of the five pressures needs its own measurement, and none of them is measured well today.
Four ways to see the ocean
Each technology sees a different layer, at a different scale and cost. They work best together.
No single technology is enough. The strongest companies will combine them, for example robots that collect eDNA, or satellite data validated by field sensors, and sell the answer rather than the instrument.
47 startups, mostly early
The companies we follow, grouped by technology. Inclusion is for context and is not an endorsement.
The field is young: 34 of 47 companies have no recorded equity or only pre-seed funding. France, the USA and the UK each host eight. We look for companies that already have a paying buyer beyond research.
Measure the ocean, then protect it.
The blue economy will keep growing, and so will the need to show that it does no harm. Sensing technologies are the base layer: eDNA, robotics, remote sensing and reef tech turn an unobserved ocean into usable data.
The sector is early, funding is thin and buyers are still forming. We find it compelling where a startup has a clear customer, in regulation, offshore development or insurance, and a method that scales beyond one expedition.
Building in this space?
Talk to us- Ifremer and NOAA. Ocean coverage, exploration, threatened species, overfishing, habitat condition, reef thermal stress.
- Planetary Health Check (September 2024). Planetary boundaries, including ocean acidification.
- UN Ocean Conference, Nice (9–13 June 2025).
- France 2030. Seabed exploration programme (€350M).
- International Seabed Authority (2000–2001). Exploration regimes.
- Ternel research. Database of 47 oceantech startups, with funding stage and country.