Maritime Blue Seattle Incubator @ Fishermen’s Terminal
Washington Maritime Blue, in partnership with the Port of Seattle create a new incubator program for concept and early-stage maritime focused startups.
The Port of Seattle has commissioned Washington Maritime Blue to create and execute a program focused on helping founders working on maritime and ocean related startups by providing access to workspace, mentors, programming and more. This one-year, free program will be housed in the Blue Hub located at Fishermen’s Terminal and allow founders to learn how to take their concept and early-stage companies to the next level. This new incubator will act as a possible feeder to the marquee Maritime Blue Innovation Accelerator, a fourth-month program investing in venture scale companies.
Selection
Five companies have been selected for a program being housed at the Blue Hub in Fishermen’s Terminal. The focus areas for Maritime Blue include: Maritime Decarbonization, Renewable Ocean Energy, Sustainable Fishing & Seafood, Ocean Health & Sustainability, and the Digital Transformation. All Blue Ventures programming works to ensure that we are providing underserved communities a safe space for ideas to grow, seek out and recruit women, BIPOC, and other underserved startup founders.
Admitting companies on a rolling basis, the Seattle Maritime Blue Incubator will accept everything from ideation/concept to early-stage startups. We will also consider companies that are further along who are interested in a soft landing into the region’s blue economy.
The Program
Over 12 months, The selected startups will receive rent-free collaborative working space at the Blue Hub in Fishermen’s Terminal. The startups will benefit from the full suite of the Washington Maritime Blue cluster members, stakeholders and partners, be a part of unique programming, and the opportunity to connect with a global network of maritime and ocean economy mentors. Maritime Blue members include global, national and regional maritime companies, leading research institutions, government and public agencies, and other community organizations.
Why Maritime, Ocean and the Blue Economy?
The OECD predicts the Global Ocean Economy is expected to double to $3 Trillion by 2030. If, and only if, we employ sustainable solutions and accelerate innovation that address current climate and ocean health challenges. – accelerating the Blue Economy.
The Washington Maritime Blue cluster organization is a strategic alliance formed to accelerate innovation and sustainability building on one of the most diverse, interdependent and strong maritime and ocean economies in the US. Add Washington’s strengths in technology development, advanced manufacturing and a culture of best practices, and our region quickly becomes a Center of Excellence to grow jobs, protect the environment, and support resilience in communities.
Meet the first set of Startups for 2023-2024
Astraeus Ocean Systems is developing autonomous, ropeless deployment and recovery systems for marine assets, ranging from climate-monitoring sensor packages to commercial crab and lobster pots. These systems reduce the cost and complexity of deploying large fleets of assets at sea while eliminating entanglement risks for marine mammals and end-of-life waste for next-generation sensor networks at sea.
Earthwise Sorbents, a San Diego, California-based company, offers an array of highly effective sorbent products, made from recycled and repurposed foam and fabric materials. Earthwise Sorbents repurposes polyurethane wastes into high-performance absorbent pillows and recycles plastic and polypropylene wastes from other large vendors into melt-blown pads, sweeps, and booms. This reduces the carbon footprint of manufacturing our products and gives foam and fabric waste a second life as environmental clean-up products.
Oo-Nee Sea Ranch is on a mission to build sustainable seafood supply chains and regenerate PNW coastal communities and ecosystems by vertically integrating the harvesting, ranching, and processing of purple urchin and other symbiotic coastal species.
RMZ Marine Construction has developed SkillWind, a digital platform that connects offshore wind developers, candidates from parallel/related fields, and existing training resources to create a win-win outcome for all parties by fomenting workforce development and helping bridge the lack of qualified skilled professionals required to meet the energy transition goals for the new/developing OSW industry.
UnCruise Adventures is a responsible travel and adventure leader in the small boat industry. UnCruise have installed their Navy award-winning prototype on the small boat Safari Quest, cruising Puget Sound & Alaska waters, for Autonomous Detection of Marine Mammals by using below-water acoustic sensors and above-water sensors.
Access to Capital
Washington Maritime Blue is working to direct capital towards maritime innovation and entrepreneurs.
We act as a resource and pipeline to projects, start-ups, and investments that lead towards our vision for a sustainable, innovative and growing blue economy in Washington State.