Nova UCD-based offshore construction designer Restore Blue in €500k funding push

Extracted directly from Business Post:

Restore Blue, a Dublin-based oceanographic sustainability business, plans to raise €500,000 in its next funding round, which it expects to close later this year.

Based in NovaUCD, Restore Blue was founded by Sarah Cosgrove, in 2023.

The business has seven staff and has raised €450,000 in funding to date. The company has developed a software platform to help offshore construction projects design with nature in mind.

“When we build in the ocean space, there’s potential that the construction and operational phases can cause harm to marine life,” she said.

“Those negative impacts need to be addressed. Yet when we build an offshore windfarm it also has the potential to give back to the local marine ecosystem.

“Incorporating nature in the plan at an early stage is the best way to address that.

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“There are many technologies that can help with that to protect, restore and enhance biodiversity.”

Cosgrove is a marine ecologist who worked in academia, between the University of Galway and University of Texas, before moving into consulting.

Restore Blue is a way for her to bring both aspects of her experience to the sector.

“This is bringing the two worlds together. Developers are often unaware of the ways they can include nature in the design of their projects.

“Coming from the marine ecology world, I realised what would be needed to get that full understanding to make informed decisions,” she said.

Company Details

• Founded by: Sarah Cosgrove in 2023
• Staff: 7
• Funding: €450,000

“It was a time when a lot of nature-inclusive technologies were being developed on a global scale.

“A lot of it looked interesting to me and I decided there was a way to create a one-stop shop for everyone in the offshore space to understand what they could use.”

Given the scale of the challenge Cosgrove seeks to address, it comes as no surprise that a great deal of effort has been required to develop Restore Blue.

“It was an intense first year and a half. We were building out our database, our global ecosystem, partnerships and data share agreements to get as much information about these technologies as we could.

“From there we designed a platform that developers and marine consultancies could use to access the information intelligently,” she said.

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“We then started piloting what we had with industry. We’ve built our team around that and launched our software onto the market last September.”

Enterprise Ireland has supported Restore Blue from the start and Cosgrove said the agency’s support has been invaluable.

“They’ve been part of our journey since day one. I went in there with a concept to apply for New Frontiers.

“From there, I started building the company. After New Frontiers, we secured the pre-seed start fund with Enterprise Ireland,” she said.

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“Since becoming a client, we’ve had continuous support and have great advisors.”

The plan for the next year is to keep doing research to enhance the platform by engaging in another 10 pilots with industry partners.

“As we develop the software we want to keep piloting with industry to get that intelligence,” Cosgrove said.

“From there we want to target markets in northern Europe.”

This Making it Work article was produced in partnership with Enterprise Ireland.