🟦 Blue Tide Roundup | June 17, 2026
Ocean services reach $1.44 trillion, $54M investment in deep-sea geothermal, Anthropic comes to marine conservation
Welcome back! This week we’re looking at where the ocean economy is growing, funding for a new approach to renewable energy from the seafloor, and what AI could mean for marine citizen science.
📊 Ocean services trade hit $1.44 trillion in 2025, with tourism leading the way
New UNCTAD data show that the ocean economy is increasingly being driven by services rather than physical goods. Tourism, shipping, and port logistics now make up 58% of total ocean-related trade, up from 47% in 2020, with marine and coastal tourism alone reaching $785 billion last year after a decrease during the pandemic.
Physical ocean goods still matter, with ships, equipment, seafood, and high-tech manufacturing crossing $1 trillion in 2025, but the data suggest that the bigger growth opportunity lies in what happens around the ocean rather than what comes out of it. For small island and coastal developing nations, UNCTAD points to this shift as a practical opening to build exports and create jobs through blue economy strategies, without needing large-scale industrial infrastructure to do it.
⚡ Endurance Energy raises $54M Series A to tap geothermal energy from the ocean floor
Endurance Energy, founded by former SpaceX engineer Andrew Redd, has raised a $54 million Series A to develop geothermal power plants on the ocean floor. Founders Fund led the round, with participation from Felicis Ventures, First Round Capital, Point72 Ventures, Voyager Ventures, and others. The company is targeting tectonic spreading zones along the Ring of Fire, where magma flows close to the surface, as sites for underwater power plants.
Redd’s pitch is that ocean-based geothermal solves the core limitations of land-based alternatives. The best onshore sites are already claimed, and drilling deep enough elsewhere is costly and slow. Endurance estimates there are around 6 terawatts of developable geothermal potential along the Ring of Fire alone, enough to power any major coastal city in the region. The company plans to use an optimization algorithm to balance cable costs, resource scale, and market size on shore when selecting sites.
Read the TechCrunch article here.
🐠 Anthropic and REEF are teaming up to strengthen marine citizen science
Reef Environmental Education Foundation (REEF) has been selected as a host for Claude Corps, a new Anthropic fellowship program that places early-career talent within mission-driven nonprofits for 12-month, fully funded placements. Beginning in October, fellows will work alongside REEF staff on projects including improving data tools for the Volunteer Fish Survey Project and organizing its conservation media archive.
REEF runs one of the world’s largest marine life citizen science datasets, built from more than 30 years of underwater observations contributed by volunteer divers and snorkelers. The Key Largo-based organization says its focus within the fellowship will be on practical applications for existing conservation and research work.
That's it for this week. If you have a story, company, or initiative you'd like to see featured, reach out.
Fascinating about ocean services outpacing goods!