Running Tide was built for our kids

Life on Earth is possible because of the ocean, and today, the ocean is hotter and more acidic than at any point in human history. The more slow carbon we dig up and burn, the more carbon dioxide enters the ocean, the faster it declines.

We started Running Tide to restore balance to our planet by partnering with nature to heal the ocean and fix our climate for future generations. That is the victory condition. In the past seven years, the urgency of our mission has only increased. 

In 2023, Running Tide executed the largest successful carbon removal project in the open ocean, removing more tons of CO2 per day than any other operation on Earth.

Running Tide completed the work at the lowest cost, in the harshest environments, with the highest bar for quality, removing carbon on behalf of the largest companies in the world, while increasing our understanding of the ocean.

This work was enabled by partnerships with global maritime operators, academic research partners, the Government of Iceland and quantified on our proprietary ocean intelligence platform using the lowest cost ocean sensors ever developed and deployed. 

Running Tide was built to do the hardest, most ambitious things that no one thinks is possible better and faster than anyone could imagine.  

Unfortunately, today we are beginning the process of shutting down Running Tide’s global operations because we are unable to secure the right kind of financing to continue our work with the urgency it requires. 

Humanity has created an industrial scale mess and we need industrial scale solutions. Carbon removal is not a technological challenge or a science problem. It is a cost of capital and logistics problem.

The problem is the voluntary carbon market is voluntary, and there simply isn’t the demand needed to support large scale carbon removal. We need global leadership that understands that geoengineering is required to fix the only planet we have, and that our integrity will be judged on if we achieve the victory condition and nothing else. That leadership exists - I’ve seen it in places like Iceland, Norway, Japan, and Canada. We just need more of it globally, and in the US particularly, if we are going to make a dent. 

While this is incredibly disappointing, I can’t help but be proud of the work we have done as a team. Running Tide ultimately became a global company with investors, partners, and collaborators across multiple oceans. With the support from corporate partners such as Microsoft, Shopify, Stripe, Patch, and Good Zero we proved that partnering with the ocean is the lowest risk, lowest cost, and most scalable way of removing carbon. The work of fixing the planet will be done on docks, on ships, in forests, in mines, and out in the open ocean.  

Ultimately the legacy of Running Tide will be the team we assembled. There has never been a team as talented, as focused, as hard working, that has accomplished as much as we have towards the mission. Thank you.

We achieved more together than I could have possibly hoped for seven years ago when I was sitting on a bucket on a dock in Portland, Maine, welding oyster reefs. We did the thing. We grew oysters, we removed carbon, and we increased the world's understanding of the ocean. 

Starting a company of any kind is a hopeful act. Starting a company with the explicit goal of restoring nature and healing the ocean requires hope for the future and humility in the face of the complexity and the scale of the problem. 

I still have hope. The victory condition remains the same. So grab a shovel, we still have work to do.

Marty Odlin, 

CEO and Founder