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OceanWell Secures $11 Million in Series A to Build Deep-Sea Water Farms and Supply Abundant Fresh Water
OceanWell, a water technology company, announced $11 million in Series A funding to scale its next-generation modular deep-sea water farm solution and launch California’s water farm pilot with Las Virgenes Municipal Water District (LVMWD). Kubota Corporation, a century-old leader in water infrastructure manufacturing, the family office of Jon Hemingway of Carrix Ports, and Charles McGarraugh, former head of metals trading at Goldman Sachs, participated in the round.
OceanWell is developing modular deep-sea water farms made up of pods that harness natural hydrostatic pressure at depths of 400 meters for reverse osmosis desalination. Each pod can produce up to one million gallons of fresh water daily, and the modular design allows for scalable projects based on demand. This technology ensures ultra-clean water by filtering out salts, bacteria, viruses, pesticides, and PFAS, while its robust components are engineered for durability in harsh deep-sea environments. Unlike traditional desalination methods that are energy-intensive and threaten marine life, OceanWell’s technology reduces energy consumption by up to 40 percent, while protecting marine life and eliminating toxic brine disposal.
Kubota North America Corporation Acquires Bloomfield Robotics, Inc.
Kubota Corporation, Osaka, Japan, through its North American subsidiary, Kubota North America Corporation, has acquired Bloomfield Robotics, Inc., a Pittsburgh-based company. Bloomfield provides a service that monitors the health and performance of specialty crops, one plant at a time, using advanced imaging and artificial intelligence (AI) to growers across seven countries and three continents.
Bloomfield’s cameras are the foundation for a new Software as a Service (SaaS) that provides plant-level health and performance assessments for growers of grapes (e.g., wine, table, and juice), blueberries, and other specialty crops. Bloomfield’s purpose-built cameras are easily mounted on tractors and other vehicles common to farming and allow for the capture of detailed plant-level, geo-located images of the entire farm. These images are then translated into crop data such as color, maturity, and size of the fruit using Bloomfield’s AI. The result is unprecedented insights into harvest timing and yield, which enables meaningful operational efficiencies, better timed harvests, reduced labor costs, and increased asset utilization.