Rypples Ripplin' Vol #1
A plastic-free future, a €600M subsea deal, and fresh water from the deep
Welcome to the first edition of Rypples newsletter!
We back the founders building the next layer of ocean innovation, and we want to take you along for it. The ocean is producing extraordinary things, from fresh water made with sunlight to packaging grown from seaweed. The technology works. What keeps failing is everything after it, the hard stretch where a proven invention has to become a company that scales.
So we built Rypples to own that stretch. As a holding company, we invest from our own balance sheet, keep reinvesting as our companies grow, and stand beside founders as co-founders rather than passive shareholders, with a dedicated operator on every board from day one and a full success team behind them.
Everything about Rypples comes from one question we asked ourselves: if you were a founder with a proven ocean technology and a planetary-scale vision, what would you actually need from an investor? You can find our answer, and everything Rypples stands for in our first piece ‘Your Vision. At Planetary Scale’.
A Bold Vision — The future without plastic
In every issue we hand the opening to one of our founders and let them describe the world their work is building toward. So in the spirit of Your Vision. At Planetary Scale., what would that look like for Julia and Sway?
Fifteen trillion plastic bags and mailers are produced every year. Can we actually get rid of them all? Julia has spent years proving the answer is YES. With Sway she makes packaging from seaweed that acts as plastic and then simply composts. Sway’s packaging is already in the market, with major brands signing on.
A Deep Dive — Should you sell, or should you grow?
It is one of the hardest questions a growth founder ever faces, and Chiara Petrioli of WSENSE, one of the founders we back, recently had to answer it. Her decision became our first exit.
Some calls are obvious. You have run out of TAM, your investors are tired, dilution took the decision out of your hands, or a new entrant is hammering you. But what happens when everything is going right? You are growing two to three times a year, your TAM has no ceiling in sight, customers are happy, investors are excited, and then a strategic offer lands on the table. How do you decide then?
It is tempting to think the deciding factor is money, but for a mission driven founder it never really is. Ringing the Nasdaq bell is seductive too, though a risky thing to chase. What actually settles the question is the mission. When a founder truly believes a deal will accelerate the mission, taking it is the right call, even if that means passing on a Series B while everything is still going great.
Chiara invented underwater wifi, wireless subsea networks that connect sensors, robots and divers in real time. She is on a mission to give the ocean a voice. Fincantieri, as a global powerhouse of maritime, committed €600 million to acquire four companies and build one vertically integrated underwater operator. WSENSE was chosen as the connective layer that ties everything together. That partnership makes WSENSE the standard for underwater communications and carries Chiara’s mission further, and faster, than another funding round could have.
This is our first exit, and we could not be prouder of who it belongs to. Jerome wrote his perspective here. We backed Chiara and worked closely with her and the team through this very decision. A milestone worth celebrating across the whole ocean-tech community. Huge congratulations to Chiara and the entire WSENSE team.
A World First — Fresh water, pulled from the deep
In Norway, Alexander and the Flocean team switched on the first commercial plant Flocean One at Mongstad, that makes fresh water 500 meters below the surface.
At that depth the ocean’s own pressure drives the process, so desalination runs about 40% more efficient with no chemicals, no harmful brine, and no coastal land taken up. Desalination has been energy-hungry and stuck on land for decades. Flocean just showed us what comes next. For island nations and coastal towns running short on fresh water, Flocean could make all the difference. The future of fresh water is subsea.
Live from Rypples HQ
A quick look at what we have been up to in the first half of the year.
The team is growing. Ophelia Chua joined us early in the year as CFOO and we brought on Cordula Pfluegl, as Head of Marketing, because the ocean has far too few people telling its stories. And congrats to Sofia on her promotion to Investment Manager.
Summer kicked off at the Blue Economy and Finance Forum in Monaco, where four of our founders pitched on the main stage. Jerome took the stage alongside Marble to make the case for how technology can turn marine protected areas from lines on a map into a reality. You can watch the presentation here.
We finalised our company registration in Abu Dhabi Global Market. ADGM provides us with a globally positioned sustainable finance and impact investing ecosystem aligned with our mandate, supported by strong and trusted English Common Law framework, and a competitive tax-efficient regime.
We have backed 12 ocean companies across five verticals (ocean intelligence, ecosystems, maritime, blue foods and ocean health), the result of sitting down with more than 100 founders over the last year. Meeting so many people building for the ocean has been the best part of it, and we are not slowing down. A few new investments are already in closing. Stay tuned.
Introducing the Ocean Scalers program
Scaling a company is lonely. Really lonely. And for ocean founders, the technology is rarely what breaks them. It is the leap from brilliant founder to the CEO who can take the whole thing to scale, and nobody should have to make that leap alone. So we built the room we always wished existed, where ocean CEOs So we built the room we always wished existed, a place where ocean CEOs push each other forward.
Ocean Scalers is our peer-to-peer program built to help CEOs grow faster and reach their planetary-scale vision, putting them in carefully matched groups to learn from the founders facing the very same challenges. We will tell and show more at our invite-only founders breakfast during Climate Week in New York. If you know an ocean founder who would thrive in it, nominate them or forward this along: The Ocean Scalers Breakfast
Come find us in September!
If you’d like us at one of your events, want to explore a partnership, or want to join one of our curated formats for founders and family offices, just reply to this email.
AT ONE Singapore Impact Week - September 8–12. We’ll be there hosting a session at the 4th Annual Gathering of 1000 Ocean Startups, and we're looking to meet founders and family offices in the region.
The Drop - Malmö, September 15–16. Together with James Lindsay of Builders Vision, we’re hosting a Ripple titled ‘Ocean: too early or misfunded?’ on the 16th of September. Make sure to get your spot here.
NY Climate Week - September 20-26. Amongst other events, Jerome will be speaking at The Nest’s Main Stage on September 23rd on ‘What is the ocean worth?’. Get your complimentary ticket here.
That is Vol 1. We are building Rypples in the open, so tell us what landed and what didn't. And if you know someone who cares about the ocean reaching scale, forward this along.
The Rypples team
Rypples is the growth engine to scale ocean innovation. We back market-ready ocean technology and drive the execution that gets it to scale. Your Vision. At Planetary Scale.
*Nothing in this newsletter is an offer or solicitation to invest in Rypples. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results. Past results do not indicate future performance.