133rd Edition
Hi everyone!
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News
The Port of San Diego outlined its aquaculture efforts as part of a broader blue economy strategy, focusing on developing sustainable shellfish and seaweed farming through pilot projects, partnerships, and planning initiatives that aim to create jobs, support innovation, and deliver environmental benefits like improved water quality and ecosystem restoration.
Synthesizing decades of research, a new review led by the National Oceanography Centre warns that deep-sea mining could cause significant, and in some cases irreversible, biodiversity loss across unique and poorly understood ecosystems, while highlighting major scientific uncertainties and gaps that complicate effective environmental protection.
Announced at Singapore Maritime Week, a new collaboration between American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) and Fleet Robotics aims to advance autonomous robotic systems for continuous hull cleaning and inspection, seeking to standardize data, integrate robotics into regulatory workflows, and enable safer, more efficient, and data-driven vessel maintenance across the maritime industry.
Highlighting growing early-stage momentum in Canada’s blue economy, the Ocean Startup Project has selected 23 teams for its 2026 Ocean Idea Challenge: an entry-level program supporting oceantech entrepreneurs with funding, mentorship, and customer discovery to validate ideas across sectors like aquaculture, ocean data, and marine safety.
Tracking the rising financial momentum of ocean industries, this article highlights how the University of North Carolina Wilmington’s Blue Economy Index has rapidly gained traction, outperforming major benchmarks like the S&P 500 while offering the first global metric for sustainable, ocean-based economic growth and investment.
The Environmental Defense Fund has launched a new research program to evaluate phytoplankton-based carbon removal strategies, aiming to mobilize global scientific collaboration to assess their effectiveness, risks, and broader social and ecological impacts before any large-scale deployment.
Opportunities
Upwell LATAM has opened applications for their milestone-driven commercialization program that aims to pair LATAM ocean startups with industry partners for real-world deployment. Their applications are due May 15th.
The AquaScale BIM Innovation Studio+ will be in Galway, 26-28 May. It is a three-day intensive program that aims to bring together a small group of aquatech enterprises for pressure testing, execution planning, etc.
UC San Diego’s StartBlue Accelerator has opened applications for their immersive fall program.
The newest iteration of UCSC’s Blue Pioneer’s program has been announced, this year taking place as a two week immersion acceleration in Zanzibar. Check here for more details.
Canada’s first blue economy accelerator Blue Action Canada has opened applications for their 2026 cohort.
Apply to Katapult’s Ocean Accelerator program that is designed to guide founders through complex entrepreneurial issues, add structure, and help raise a startup’s next round.
Fair Carbon has launched a Blue Carbon Academy that aims to help with the fine-tuning of the design of a Blue Carbon project.
Join the Blue Growth Community to get access to opportunities, expertise, and connections as an innovator.
Events
The Seaworthy Collective is having their Tampa Bay launch event on May 6th.
Zané van Greuning, writer of Blue Tide is hosting a free “Content Marketing for Ocean & Climate Tech Startups” call on May 7th.
During Boston Climate Week, there is an event on May 7th entitled “Where Lab Meets the Ocean— Boston’s Robotics Revolution is Going Global”.
The SF Blue Tech May happy hour will be hosted at the South Beach Yacht Club on May 14th. The topic of discussion is ocean biomimicry.
At the LAB Miami, the Seaworthy Collective will be hosting their 2026 startup showcase on May 20th.
Hatch Blue has organized a Blue Catalyst Challenge Demo Day on May 22nd in Singapore.
June 1-3, the AI, Ocean & Coastal Territories Waves of Change Forum is being hosted in Biarritz.
The Florida Ocean Alliance is hosting a webinar on June 2nd entitled “The Future of Resilience: Technology, Innovation & Florida’s Coasts”.
On June 17th, Braid Theory is hosting a “Port of LA Harbor Tour and Coastal Resilience Scorecard Workshop”.
The 7th World Conference for Marine Biodiversity will be taking place in Belgium 17-20 November 2026. You can register here.
Learning
Drawing on input from a globally distributed network of scientists, this study highlights both consensus and regional divergence in monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) priorities for marine carbon dioxide removal, underscoring the urgent need for internationally aligned frameworks to ensure the effectiveness, safety, and legitimacy of mCDR efforts.
Check out GreenWave’s new interactive kelp farm visualization on the Ocean Farming Hub.
[C]Worthy, a non-profit focused on accelerating ocean-based climate solutions through innovative software and research, has a public GitHub that includes the repository for their CStar package: a new python package for setting up and running ocean model simulations.
Companies doing the work
SeaGreen Solutions develops seaweed-based biochar and marine bioproducts that enable durable carbon removal while improving soil performance, supporting stormwater management, and advancing low-carbon infrastructure.