Ulysses Ecosystem Engineering funding news – Drone startup Ulysses Ecosystem Engineering Secures $2 Million in Pre-Seed Funding

Seagrass meadows are disappearing quickly, with 7% lost every year, and restoring them is expensive. To address this, Ulysses is using drones to automate the restoration of marine habitats like seagrass.

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The company has developed affordable, high-performance drones that can restore these habitats 10 times cheaper and 100 times faster than traditional methods.

Seagrass plays a vital role in ocean biodiversity. It is highly effective at removing carbon, capturing 35 times more carbon than rainforests. Although seagrass meadows cover only a small part of the ocean floor, they store about 10% of the ocean's carbon.

Co-founder and CCO Will O’BrienO’Brien said, “Traditional methods involve divers going down and manually collecting seeds by hand. Then, they process the seeds on land. Then, they go back into the ocean and plant them by hand. Divers are limited by how much time they can dive per day for health and safety reasons. Additionally, they are limited by weather. In comparison, our technology doesn't face these limitations and can move much quicker than humans.”

Ulysses Ecosystem Engineering has teamed up with The Nature Conservancy and governments in Florida and Australia to carry out large-scale ecosystem restoration projects. They’ve successfully restored seagrass in trials with the University of Western Australia.

The funding round was led by Lowercarbon Capital, with support from Superorganism, the world’s first biodiversity-focused venture capital firm, and ReGen Ventures, an investor in large-scale environmental technologies. Angel investors, including Eoghan McCabe and Ciaran Lee, co-founders of Intercom, also contributed.

Ryan Orbuch, Partner at Lowercarbon Capital, added: “Ulysses’ underwater drones make seagrass planting 10x cheaper and are ready to scale restoration efforts today.”

Akhil Voorakkara, CEO and co-founder of Ulysses: "We've proven that autonomous restoration can reverse this trend at a fraction of the traditional cost. If you’re a marine scientist, a conservation group, or a government agency ready to move beyond pilot projects to landscape-scale restoration, reach out to us. The solutions exist - now it's time to deploy them."

Ulysses Ecosystem Engineering plans to use the funding to hire more engineers and marketing team members, and increase production for upcoming projects in 2025.

About Ulysses

Founded in 2023, Ulysses is on a mission to restore ocean ecosystems and remove massive amounts of carbon. The team includes engineers and experts who have worked on creating Formula 1 cars, drones, satellites, hyperloops, and self-driving cars. They started Ulysses because they believe scaling up ocean restoration is essential to fighting climate change, improving ocean health, and supporting a better future for everyone.