One structure, one closed loop. Every stage exists to move the planet from degraded and dying back to alive and productive — and every stage is designed to pay for the next one.
The upper structure is seeded with fast-growing macroalgae before it ever touches water. From the moment it's deployed, it's photosynthesizing — pulling dissolved CO2 out of the surrounding seawater and releasing oxygen directly into it. Ocean deoxygenation is not a future risk; it's already measured. This is the most direct lever we have on it at the site level.
The lower structure is a high-surface-area lattice carrying a continuous low-voltage current — mineral accretion technology, first developed for artificial reef restoration. The current draws dissolved minerals out of seawater and deposits them onto the lattice as a limestone-like coating, giving coral fragments a substrate to attach to and grow on, typically faster and more resilient to heat stress than unassisted natural reef.
A reef structure isn't just coral — it's habitat. The interstitial gaps in the lattice are sized to shelter reef fish and invertebrates, and the combination of hard substrate below and living kelp canopy above recreates the two things a marine dead zone is missing: shelter and oxygen.
Mature algae is harvested from the upper canopy on a rolling cycle, structurally and mechanically separate from the coral zone below, so harvesting never disturbs the reef it's growing above.
Harvested algae becomes the input for four separate supply chains — food, fertilizer, protein, and soil regeneration — detailed below. This is the step that makes restoration commercially self-sustaining instead of purely charitable.
A monitoring and power buoy sits above each structure — solar-powered, running on the same low-voltage system that drives mineral accretion below — so the tower doesn't just grow, it reports on its own state.
Cameras mounted on the cultivation frame capture the canopy on a regular schedule. An onboard model estimates biomass volume from canopy coverage, colour, and growth-rate change over time — not just whether the algae is ready to harvest, but how fast it's approaching that point.
Once biomass crosses a threshold, the buoy signals it — a visible beacon for boat crews working nearby, with cellular or LoRa alerts to shore for sites within range, so harvesting happens on the plant's schedule, not a fixed calendar.
pH, temperature, dissolved oxygen, and turbidity are logged continuously. This is the same data that research partners need for collaboration, and that blue-carbon and biodiversity credit registries increasingly require as verification.
Rather than a fixed current, onboard sensors read real-time water chemistry and tune the accretion current for optimal coral growth conditions as they shift with tide, season, and temperature.
Accelerometer and strain sensing on the anchor point detect abnormal stress or drift, flagging storm damage or structural risk before a unit is lost.
Underwater manipulation is one of the hardest open problems in robotics. We're not skipping the hard part — we're sequencing it.
A human pilot operates a tethered or rail-mounted harvesting arm from the surface, cutting and collecting mature fronds into a collection basket — getting real harvest cycles running immediately, without waiting on autonomy to be solved.
Every teleoperated harvest captures video and control input as training data — a growing demonstration dataset generated as a byproduct of normal operations, at no extra cost.
Once enough demonstrations exist, a model trained on that data takes over routine cutting and collection decisions, with a human supervising and able to intervene at any point.
The end state: a rail-mounted harvester handling routine cycles autonomously, with free-swimming ROVs reserved for irregular or manual work — a simpler, more tractable robotics problem than open-water autonomy from day one.
Harvested seaweed processed into food-grade products for human consumption — seaweed is already a dietary staple for hundreds of millions of people and a fast-growing category globally.
Global seaweed farming already supports over 6 million farmers and their families worldwideNutrient-rich biomass converted into organic fertilizer and biostimulants for depleted farmland — restoring the mineral and microbial life that industrial monoculture has stripped from agricultural soils over decades.
See our Impact page for the soil-nutrient data behind thisHigh-yield algae protein extracted for animal feed and next-generation food systems — a lower-footprint protein source than most land-based livestock feed inputs.
Coastal processing and packaging is inherently local, labour-intensive workBiomass-based amendments that bring dead, degraded soil back to productive life — reintroducing organic matter and mineral content to soils that have lost both.
Reversing desertification is inherently local, on-the-ground restoration work