Welcome to our March newsletter!
Further Reflections on Villars, France &
Monaco:
In a recent
LinkedIn post, we covered our whirlwind trip through Switzerland
(Villars Ocean Forum 2026), France (Institut Océanographique
/ Maison de l’Océan), and Monaco (A Day of Exploration at
Yacht Club of Monaco). Given space limitations, we could
only briefly mention some of the topics that were discussed.
With that in mind, we wanted to add a few more specific
comments:
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Across conversations and geographies, the question of
“patient capital” surfaced repeatedly, reflecting a
growing recognition that many high-impact initiatives do
not fit within the traditional VC model.
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Alongside this, there is a clear need to expand
engagement with family offices and foundations to unlock
greater pools of catalytic capital.
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We also saw the encouraging emergence of innovative
financial structures and initiatives – our favorites
included a whale trust and funds that accept donor
capital while operating as market-based funders.
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New forms of debt are also on the horizon – not only
blue bonds, but smaller-scale instruments that can be
concessionary or forgivable.
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Underpinning all of this is a strong, shared sense of
urgency: the need to move faster, take greater risks in
developing new approaches, and elevate collaboration to
a new level.
1000 Ocean Startups | Joining the Chorus Celebrating
Five Years:
Congratulations to
1000 Ocean Startups
on reaching its five-year milestone! What began in 2020 as a
small but mighty coalition has grown into a global ecosystem
of 66 Members and more than 75 organizations, collectively
supporting over 850 startups and representing more than $3
billion in assets under management. The initiative has
played an important role in strengthening collaboration,
building shared tools, and helping ocean innovation move
from promising ideas toward real-world deployment and
impact.
A few highlights of our engagements, with hopefully much
more to come:
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Served as Co-Chair of the Steering Committee for two
years – first with Ingrid Maurstad of Katapult Ocean,
then with Nick Chiarelli of Ocean Impact Organisation.
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Co-chaired the innovation workstream with Alexis
Grosskopf of OceanHub Africa.
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Partnered on an seaweed investor event in NYC with Sarah
Wan-Yau and colleagues of Potato Impact Partners.
Updates on Our 2026 Focus Areas:
In our last newsletter, we noted that we’re doing a deep
dive on plastics in 2026 following, or inspired by, the Pew
Charitable Trusts’ recent report,
Breaking the Plastic Wave 2025. We’re currently finalizing plans for an investor
conference focused on the “Financing Plastic Solutions”
during the first week of June at The Explorers Club in New
York City. The event will bring together investors, funds,
and NGOs to explore the plastics innovation ecosystem with
finance as a through line. We’ve conducted over two dozen
landscape interviews to date, and have been deeply impressed
by the variety and quality of initiatives, as well as the
talented and dedicated people leading them. We’re confident
this will be an engaging and stimulating convening and are
thankful to all those who are helping us accelerate our
learnings in this space.
We also mentioned our focus on blue foods for 2026. We’re
planning to co-host an event on this topic during NYC
Climate Week with several partners, and will likely be
involved in other blue economy events during that time –
stay tuned for updates.
As always, we thank you for your support!
The Investable Oceans Team
