Running Tide Technologies, a Portland-based company that operates traditional oyster farms, has just emerged from stealth with a big, bold plan to sequester gigatons of CO2 on the ocean floor over the next several years by growing kelp and then sinking it to the bottom of the sea.

The company has been keeping its cards close to the vest, but Fast Company magazine published an article today revealing Running Tide’s plan to leverage its aquaculture expertise to tackle the issue of climate change. Its plan, according to the magazine, is to grow kelp, which like other plants extracts carbon dioxide from the environment, on floating rigs and then sink them to the ocean floor. Once there, the CO2 could remain sequestered for centuries.

“Once it goes down below 1,000 meters, it’s not coming back up, because the pressures are so great,” Marty Odlin, Running Tide’s founder and CEO, told Fast Company. “So you can get at least 1,000 years of sequestration. More likely, it will turn into oil or sediment and be sequestered on the geologic timescale—millions of years.”

Unlike terrestrial forests that can burn or degrade and release the carbon back into the atmosphere, marine plants don’t break down as easy. Plus, coastal ecosystems sequester up to 20 times more carbon per acre than land forests, according to this article published by Harvard University.

Running Tide updated its website this week. While previously focused on traditional shellfish aquaculture, it now includes language about its “negative emissions journey” to combat climate change with its kelp. It also says that Running Tide will be selling “kelp carbon credits.”

Maine Startups Insider had heard rumors about the company and how it had been able to attract big-time VC money. MSI published an article last week speculating that Chris Sacca, one of Silicon Valley’s most well-known venture capitalists, had invested in the company via his new VC firm, Lowercarbon Capital. Sacca did not respond to MSI’s requests for confirmation, but did announce his firm’s investment in the Portland company on Twitter after the Fast Company article was published.

“Bonkers scale, unreasonable ambition, massive impact on the plant. During insane times, it’s entrepreneurs like @martyodlin that fire us up,” Sacca tweeted.

Shopify, the ecommerce behemoth, also revealed itself this week as an investor in Running Tide. The ecommerce-platform company last year launched its Sustainability Fund to fight climate change. On Monday, it shared in a blog post how it invested its first $5 million, including an investment of undisclosed size in Running Tide.

“All work is important in carbon reduction, but some people have to try to kill the monster,” Odlin told Shopify. “Everyone should try to slow it down, but we should pick 15–20 technologies that might be able to stop the whole thing all by themselves. That’s what we’re trying to build.”

“All work is important in carbon reduction, but some people have to try to kill the monster.”

I have not been successful getting the company to confirm how much it raised, but Pitchbook claims it raised $11.2 million in November 2019. In addition to Lowercarbon Capital and Shopify, PitchBook lists three additional investors: Soraya Darabi, an angel investor, San Francisco-based Pathbreaker Ventures, and San Francisco-based Yes VC.

David Frankel, a partner at Boston-based Founder Collective, also revealed on Twitter on Tuesday that he had led the seed financing.

MSI will continue to cover the story and update it if additional details become known.

 

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