Schmidt Marine Technology Partners Awards $3 Million in Grants for Ocean Research

Schmidt Marine Technology Partners (SMTP), a program of The Schmidt Family Foundation, has awarded $3 million in grants to help launch new ocean technology initiatives and support existing partners. The funds support innovative projects that enable ocean research, promote habitat health, and maintain sustainable fisheries.

SMTP’s “venture philanthropy” model was developed to fill a gap in support available for the early development of ocean technologies, which typically require something beyond traditional grants in order to achieve full potential and availability. Since its founding in 2015, SMTP has contributed funding to the development of more than 60 promising technologies that solve complex ocean health issues and, in most cases, have strong commercialization potential. This grant cycle’s recipients and projects include the following:

Virgil Group LLC for the development of SeafoodCheck, an automated software solution to assessing seafood legality

Subsea Data Systems is working with the University of Hawaii and the ITU/WMO/UNESCO-IOC Joint Task Force for SMART Subsea Cable to support development of SMART Cables, a global climate ocean monitoring system

Santa Monica Bay Foundation and Marauder Robotics for continued support of automatic urchin removal and restoring balance to kelp forests

Induced Polarization Associates (of parent company Williamson and Associates) to support the development of a towable contaminate sensing system

Anna Michel’s lab at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution for further development of a portable ocean gas sensor

Ocean Research and Conservation Association for multiple efforts aimed at tracking and addressing estuary pollution issues

Ocean Visions to support the exploration of ocean based carbon dioxide removal

Plant a Million Corals Foundation to train groups internationally in coral reef restoration methods, and to provide toolkits for such work

Bishop Museum and Stone Aerospace for continued support of Sunfish, a “self-driving” real-time mapping automatic underwater vehicle (AUV)

Schmidt Marine Technology Partners is part of the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Network that includes The Schmidt Family Foundation, Schmidt Futures, 11th Hour Project, Schmidt Ocean Institute, 11th Hour Racing and Remain Nantucket.