Blue Economy Startups: Venture Capital, Geographies, Investors and Exits (Dealroom)

Summary

• Katapult Ocean is the most active Blue Economy investor with 65 rounds across 60 companies.§3
• Anduril has the highest all-time total funding at $11.5 billion, followed by Saronic Technologies at $2.6 billion.§3
• Los Angeles led Blue Economy venture capital by metro at $5.1 billion in the last 12 months to end of Q3 2026, followed by Austin at $1.8 billion.§4
• Anduril's $5.0 billion Series H in May 2026 was the biggest Blue Economy round of the period.§5
• Shipping and ports attracted nearly $9B of VC funding between 2016 and 2025, the most of any Blue Economy segment.§6
• Fisheries startups have attracted just over $530M since 2016.§7

Key insights

1. The oceans have absorbed about 90% of the extra energy caused by fossil-fuel warming.§1
2. The WWF valued the ocean's asset base at USD 24 trillion, with USD 2.5 trillion in annual goods and services.§1
3. Shipping and ports funding peaked in 2022 at $2.7B, then fell to under $0.3B in 2023.§6
4. VC funding into shipbuilding and refit startups grew roughly 5x from 2020 to nearly $0.7B in 2023.§6
5. Ocean carbon removal raised $82M in 2024.§7
6. Only 3.4% of the ocean is protected.§7
7. Ocean-related research is estimated at only 0.04% to 4% of total global R&D spend.§8
8. The European Commission launched the BlueInvest platform in 2019.§8