Running Tide

Marty Odlin came from a Maine fishing family and trained as an engineer, and Running Tide grew out of both: the conviction that the ocean, which covers 70 percent of the planet and holds the bulk of its carbon, was the only surface area large enough to matter for climate. Founded in Portland in 2017, the company's founding idea was audacious in its simplicity — grow fast-sinking macroalgae and biomass at the surface, let it absorb CO2, then drop it into the deep sea where the carbon would stay locked away for centuries. Odlin framed it as re-plumbing the fast carbon cycle back into the slow one. It was the kind of big, systems-level swing that drew a following among climate investors hungry for gigaton-scale removal rather than incremental efficiency plays.

In September 2022 Running Tide raised a $54 million Series B led by Chris Sacca's Lowercarbon Capital, with Foundry Group, Venrock, Greenpoint Partners, and the Grantham Foundation participating — a round pitched as the largest investment in ocean-based carbon removal to date and bringing total funding to roughly $50 million and change. The capital funded a hiring spree of scientists, engineers, and operators, expanding from about 30 people in Portland to a global team of roughly 120, with an operational hub in Iceland where it deployed and monitored its systems. Sacca publicly championed Odlin, and the company positioned itself as the scientific and operational leader of a nascent field, publishing methodology frameworks and partnering with academics and Deloitte on measurement and certification.