Unlocking the Ocean’s Depth — Our Seed Investment in Bedrock Ocean Exploration

Roughly 71% of the earth is covered in water, yet only 5–10% of the seabed is mapped in detail. The ocean not only plays a vital role in the majority of the world’s commercial operations, it also fundamentally affects our climate and holds invaluable energy resources — both renewable and fossil fuels. In many ways, the ocean, and what it holds, is still one of the greatest mysteries on earth.

Today, to unravel these mysteries and collect high quality data on the ocean floor, massive corporations and governments leverage complex and expensive equipment — large ships decked out with sensors, towing additional equipment behind them, costing millions of dollars to operate. And, to make matters more complicated, after this data is collected, it is often stored and forgotten. Without significant improvements, it is estimated that it will take 970 years of non-stop work to map the entire ocean floor.

Given this huge opportunity, we are excited to co-lead Bedrock Ocean’s Seed round alongside our friends at Eniac Ventures, Quiet Capital, Charge Ventures and R7.

Bedrock Ocean is on a mission to make high quality subsea data more accessible. By using disruptively small, flexible, and relatively inexpensive fully autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), they can quickly and dramatically more cost effectively map portions of the seabed. This, in turn, makes it easier to complete crucial survey work for governments, scientific institutions and the energy, offshore wind, and telecom industries. It’s wildly cool, and wildly disruptive.

Along with building disruptive AUVs that are changing the economics of physical survey work, Bedrock is building a cloud data platform that makes accessing this data simpler. By coupling their full-stack solution with third party data, they have the opportunity to build the world’s most comprehensive subsea dataset — a dataset that will eventually help the world better forecast weather, understand climate change, and enable a range of new commercial and government or NGO-driven projects to responsibly harness the power of the seas.

When we first met Anthony DiMare (and what’s not to love about a guy named DiMare mapping the ocean’s floor?!) and Charley Chiau in early 2020, their bold vision to unlock the ocean floor immediately drew us in. With almost three decades of combined experience at the intersection of maritime technology and robotics, these guys are uniquely qualified to tackle this massive problem. Their passion for the ocean is infectious and we are confident that Bedrock is poised to revolutionize subsea data collection and access.

We couldn’t be more excited to be on this journey alongside them. Not only is it a magnificent business opportunity, but Bedrock will help to open up critical opportunities for safer, more efficient, and more cost effective learning about our oceans. And that, with time, is good for all of us.

As Anthony loves to close his emails….to the depths and beyond!

—Brad Svrulga (General Partner) & Sam Toole (Principal), Primary Venture Partners