It is an exciting time to be in our business as our grant money has enabled us to make accelerated progress, hiring the right experts to bring us to the next level and being able to spend on equipment to produce closer to real-world scenarios for us to test in.

Stealth mode is required at this juncture but we are overly excited for when we can share our advanced designs, methods, and techniques – alongside all of our more professional equipment! But that time is not now. Perhaps soon.

VentureWell is supporting us with a non-dilutive grant that will fund a critical part of our solution and allow us to bring on additional expertise to better guide our work. For a small but determined team like ours, this support means we can move faster and focus on building the systems needed to make a real impact.

At Fiora Mara, our mission is to use seaweed to capture and sink carbon in the open ocean – creating a natural, scalable way to sequester massive amounts of carbon while protecting our environment. This investment will help us to push the boundaries of what’s possible in ocean-based carbon removal and the next step toward turning this vision into reality.

This is a proud moment for our team, and we’re grateful to VentureWell for believing in our mission. We’re excited for the months ahead and look forward to building an optimal solution with this investment.

(This article originally published here – https://www.1000gretas.org/post/1000-gretas-welcomes-fiora-mara-pioneering-ocean-based-climate-solutions)

“I remembered learning about climate change in grammar school,” Adam recalls. “And now, as a full-fledged adult, I was hearing the same warnings all over again—with little meaningful progress to show for it.”

The frustration wasn’t just about the slow pace of change. It was about the lack of bold action—the kind of industry-scale solutions that could not just slow climate damage, but reverse it. That question kept ringing in Adam’s mind:

If I had infinite resources, what would I build to solve climate change?

From Forests to the Ocean

At first, Adam’s mind went to land-based solutions. He began researching optimal reforestation strategies—what combinations of trees, shrubs, and plants would be most effective. He spoke with botanists, landscape architects, and forestry experts.

Then, on a call with a colleague, someone posed a game-changing question:“If your goal is carbon removal, maybe you should be looking into seaweed.”

That simple suggestion flipped the script.

Why Seaweed?

Seaweed, Adam discovered, absorbs carbon up to 20 times faster than terrestrial forests of the same size. It grows in the ocean, making it less vulnerable to deforestation. And because the ocean covers 71% of our planet, seaweed farming offers a scalable, long-term climate solution that doesn’t require competing for land, water, or food resources.

Adam joined a climate fellowship and led a 14-person capstone team to explore the feasibility of large-scale seaweed infrastructure. The team consulted oceanic lawyers, bamboo engineers, seaweed farmers, financial strategists, and climate scientists—designing a business model to make seaweed farming both practical and impactful.

The Birth of Fiora Mara

From this research, Fiora Mara was born—a venture dedicated to ocean-based carbon removal through innovative seaweed farming. Adam and his collaborators are designing solutions that not only sequester carbon but also strengthen marine ecosystems, protect biodiversity, and create new economic opportunities for coastal communities.

“If Fiora Mara succeeds,” Adam says, “we’ll live in a world where carbon removal is no longer a desperate scramble—it’s a quiet, reliable part of a broader climate strategy.”

In Adam’s vision, climate action will no longer be seen as heroic, but habitual. And in that world, every species—not just ours—will get a fair shot at survival.

Learn More & Get Inspired

If you want to explore the science and strategy behind seaweed farming and other climate solutions, Adam recommends these resources:

• Project Drawdown – A comprehensive overview of strategies being used to fight climate change.
• Climate TRACE – Data-driven climate insights without the spin.
• Climate Solutions News – Positive reporting on climate progress and innovation.
• Greenwave – A leader in supporting seaweed farming and coastal restoration.
• Global Seaweed Coalition – Advocating for a sustainable global seaweed industry.
• How to Save a Planet – A podcast with two excellent episodes on kelp farming.
• A Matter of Degrees – Hosted by climate experts, including one with deep experience in ocean-based solutions.

Carbon
Fiora Mara, Cella, Arbon Corp, Genvision, Loa Carbon, Vycarb, CapCO2 Solutions

New Materials
TômTex Inc. Ecovative UNCAGED Innovations Ouros Materials Kintra Fibers Bloom Labs SXD Plantaer Inc. Unspent Co

Green Manufacturing
InFLOWS AI Kingdom Supercultures C16 Biosciences SnoFox Sciences Synonym Amogy Turnover Labs Caladan Bio Cascade Bio Revise Robotics (YC W25) Pitri Teknobuilt

Energy
Aircela Inc Crux Heliotrope Photonics Ambient Fuels Tierra Climate Canyon Magnet Energy Terrament NANO Nuclear Energy Inc. (NASDAQ: NNE)

Transport
it’s electric, AirCO, Voltpost, CLIP, Gravity

Home Decarbonization
Sealed, Hydronic Shell Technologies, Kelvin, Nantum AI, Renovate Robotics, Thalo Labs

Food and Agriculture
Square Roots, Quorum Bio, Re-nuble, Gotham Greens, Phood, Afterlife Ag, MyForest Foods, Stockeld Dreamery, Fable Food, Pleese Cheese, Helaina, Climax Foods, Brekland, Plantega 50CUT (formerly Mush Foods) Bramble

Today we celebrate the success of our live seaweed experiment, where we took fresh seaweed, carefully extracted the sorus tissue (seaweed spores), and attached them to grow lines in our hatchery’s grow tanks. Over time, we nursed these seeded lines until they developed into healthy plantlets, ready for oceanic deployment. This process not only demonstrates our ability to cultivate seaweed independently but also reinforces our capability to scale our solution efficiently.

Our unconventional, Breaking Bad-style RV biological clean-room has proven to be a game-changer. Not only has it allowed us to convert live seaweed into viable plantlets on grow lines, but it has also demonstrated success in transitioning gametophytes to plantlets. These results validate our ability to create a sterile, controlled environment for seaweed cultivation—an essential step in scaling our operations while maintaining quality and consistency.

This success marks a pivotal moment for Fiora Mara. By proving that our methods work, we’re laying the foundation for a scalable and sustainable system that will drive our mission forward. We’re excited about what’s next—refining our processes, expanding our capabilities, and taking the next steps toward deploying our biodegradable seaweed farms in the open ocean. Stay tuned as we continue to push the boundaries of innovation in ocean-based carbon sequestration.

My name is Ed Thomas, with the Climate Innovator, and I’m joined this morning by Adam Ornstein, Founder & CEO at Fiora Mara. Fiora Mara is an early stage startup in the carbon removal and storage space that has an exciting new nature-based solution.

Adam, do you want to take a second to introduce your company?

Adam: Sure. My company is Fiora Mara. Our goals are to utilize a nature-based solution to absorb massive amounts of carbon on the open ocean. My background is, just at my core, I’m an innovator. I’ve been hired at technology companies who work on the hard projects, the projects that you wouldn’t really expect somebody to take on. I’ve worked as a product manager in that regard, and I have an engineering degree in computer science, so what I bring to teams is some great algorithmic knowledge. I love to tackle any hard problem in technology, whether that’s an algorithm or a complex sales initiative.

Ed: Adam, obviously you guys are early stage and still refining things. But could you tell me more about the solution that you’re envisioning and how you’re approaching the nature-based carbon removal market?

Adam: Sure. Our goal is to utilize seaweed as a method of carbon capture.

Seaweed is known to absorb carbon at 20 times the rate of land-based equivalents. What we like about it is that overall the solution we’ve come up with we believe is simple, scalable and sustainable. We’re currently identifying areas of the ocean that would be most fitting for our project. We know that there’s some risks in certain areas, so we’re trying to decide where to launch our prototype. But the plan is we’re going to have various barges go along those different routes and release small self-growing and self-sinking seaweed farms along the route. These farms will be small in size to avoid issues in the marine environment. But at the same time, it’s going to absorb massive amounts of carbon on each journey across the ocean.

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And that’s our goal—to grow and sink seaweed on the open ocean. In sinking it, you’re going to sink it to a depth far enough down where it will remain captured for the long term and hopefully be reintegrated back into the soil.

Ed: You’re a seaweed farmer, effectively, is what this turns into. Should we envision this as like an ocean pen with buoys around it that sets up an area that gets seeded?

Adam: I’d say that I’m a carbon farmer, and seaweed is just an intermediary.Our goal is to create a 100% bio-friendly seaweed farm that we can launch.

Seaweed farms, in and of themselves, we don’t expect to be incredible in size—we want to keep it, again, suitable to the environment. The way that we have our vision right now is that we are looking to use bamboo poles and a biodegradable rope to keep things together, as well as seeded lines going across it and into the water, and then just release that from the vessel.

The farm, before it’s released, is already seeded, and our goal is to use gametophytes as seeds and rely less on spores. Gametophytes are actually a more mature version of seaweed seeds, essentially, a little bit more mature, and then measure growth on the water.

In the various areas of the world that we’re trying to target, we’ll find the optimal places for us to grow that seaweed and have it all at the same time. The goal is to do it a lot. Release a lot of these little farms, and by releasing a lot of little things, we’re going to make a real big impact.

Small plant, big impact.

Ed: Adam, one the challenges that I know Running Tide and some early precursors in this space have run into is the issue of monitoring and verification of the carbon they’re capturing and sinking. How are you guys thinking about the monitoring and verification challenge?

Adam: Running Tide was an excellent company, but they were a bit early.

In terms of what we’re looking to do, we are looking to partner with these carbon sequestering verification organizations. There’s a number of them out there—Gold Standard, Verra—and we want to work closely with them.

In addition, the marine biologists, marine scientists and marine engineers that we’re going to have on our team are going to be creating a way for us to monitor the growth and the sinking of the seaweed on the water to the best of our abilities. We’re trying to do everything right, and do it the way that it’s supposed to be done.

Ed: So, why the oceans? With all the different opportunities to capture carbon you could go after, why the ocean?

Adam: That’s going to be a little bit of a story followed by my reasoning.

Back near the tail end of the Coronavirus, I was getting frustrated with the fact that climate change was still a disaster and I was still waiting for it to come and kill us all. I decided, look, let me just pretend I had all the resources in the world to fight climate change and I could build anything I wanted to. What would I do?

What I started to focus in on is that I love the idea of creating a nature-based solution. What if I could just take 100,000 square miles of land and build a forest on it? What kind of forest combination would I do? What combination of shrubs and trees would I put on that land to absorb the most carbon?

At the time, I was reaching out to experts in the field. I reached out to people on LinkedIn, experts, and they were happy to have a conversation with me. I read their studies. I read various studies online.

Then finally, somebody turned to me and said, “I think you should look into seaweed. If you’re looking to absorb the most carbon, seaweed does it.”

I’m like… okay. And I looked at seaweed, and I started doing that research. As I mentioned before, seaweed absorbs carbon at 20 times the rate of a forest of the same size.

But the real benefit that I see is that it doesn’t require land. What’s the problem with land that we have? Tell me. What’s the problem?

Ed: There’s only so much of it and we have to live on it.

Adam: The problem is that we’re humans!

As humans, we want to have as much land as possible. And just because I do something good on land doesn’t mean that somebody in the next generation or in the next couple of years isn’t going to come by and bulldoze it. Anything I do on land is unmaintainable throughout my lifetime and minimally when I die. I want to do something that can’t be reversed.

The great thing about the ocean is that the world is 71% ocean. The scary thing is that the ocean is 71% of our world. As humans, that’s not a place for us to live. It’s a place for us to explore, for us to travel through.

That’s where the idea comes into play. The ocean is phenomenal.

It is also particularly sensitive to the changing carbon levels in our world. If you really want to go back in time for history, we used to be a carbon planet billions of years ago. The way that we got out of that [stage] is that algae—seaweed is a form of algae—began to form. It absorbed so much CO2 and released so much oxygen that other oxygen-based lifeforms were able to come into play and live.

The way that I see our solution is that we’re going back to basics in terms of how the Earth formed and how it became an oxygen and water planet and utilizing the method that the earth used to restore order that there is today. That’s why I’m looking at the ocean as a big solution.

In addition, if you were to grow seaweed and sink it down below 2,000 meters, 96% of that carbon is sequestered for the long term. Once you sink it down below 2,000 meters, I’m going to tell you one thing that’s less likely to happen: Humans are less likely to go down there and destroy what it is that we’ve done, at least over the next 100 or so odd years, to the point where it would be reintegrated into the ocean bed. That’s why the ocean is attractive to me as a natural solution.

Ed: You’re really approaching this entirely from what’s the efficacy of the solution compared to all the other solutions that are potentially out there.

Adam: I’m looking at not only the efficacy but also the long-lasting possibility of what we’re trying to do.

We sink seaweed once, nobody’s going to go down there and go, “Okay, we’ve got to pick this up and bring it back up to the surface and release the carbon back.” I think that’s a low risk. If you were to build a forest, you get a new government in office and they tell the paper company to go use that forest for their paper and to eliminate it [as a carbon sink].

I see anything done land-based as risky. I know that there’s some machines that are coming out that are trying to do carbon capture, but that’s at its infancy. It’s going to take a generation for [industrial carbon removal] to become more efficient.

We need to get started. It’s the way that I see it.

Ed: I think that makes a tremendous amount of sense.

If you’re a Chief Sustainability Officer at a Coke or a GE or some large or mid-sized corporation, and you’re looking at innovation as a potential solution to decarbonizing your products and your business operations, how does the carbon removal services that your firm offers fit into that set of options? How should sustainability leaders think about carbon removal?

Adam: The way that I see it Ed is there’s a lot that you can do to reduce the amount of carbon that you emit—from within your factories, within your transport on land—but you’re not going to get to zero. That’s the hurdle that we have as a culture, as a world, as a climate-fighting set of people. You can get it down, but you can’t get it to zero. That’s where the carbon capture market comes into play.

You need to capture carbon to offset the fact that you’re releasing some additional carbon into the atmosphere that you can’t account for. The decarbonization impact is phenomenal. I love to see organizations chasing after it. But nobody’s going to get to zero because you always have to ship your product to somebody at home. Even if you have it down to zero, if you’re shipping Coke to a store, for example, you’re going to have that transportation from where you made the Coke, you made it in Mexico, and you’re transporting it up to California. In that whole transition, you’re going to be wasting carbon into the atmosphere. That’s what we have today.

There’s electric vehicles. Even electric vehicles, you need to fill back up with electricity. You still will have to offset something today and in the near future, as I see. That’s where we come to play.

Ed: This isn’t a quick fix solution where I don’t have to change any of my operations.

Adam: You can do it that way. You want to hack it? Let’s talk!

But in terms of being a responsible company, you probably want to make headway on both [reducing emissions and purchasing carbon removal] because at the end of the day, if you decarbonize your [operations], you’re going to spend less on carbon removal, which will impact your bottom line in the long term.

Ed: It’s part of that menu, that combined solution, really.

Adam: Yeah, I don’t think there’s one answer to climate change. The answer to climate change is in having many different solutions.

My solution is not going to reduce the cost that we have on carbon for electricity. It’s not going to reduce the cost that we have on carbon for gas at this point. What it will do is it will offset [what we can’t easily eliminate].

If we go after electric vehicles, we significantly reduce the amount of carbon we release into the atmosphere. If we go after heating systems, we get rid of coal altogether. These are all big things that can make a giant impact. Alone, carbon capture will have a limit in which it can function. Once it gets into the trillion mark, you probably can’t do that every year. You’re going to need to make adjustments to make sure that the marine environment, any environment where you’re capturing carbon, is still kept well.

Ed: Final two questions for you. One is, if folks are interested in getting in touch with you to learn more, how can people get in touch with you?

Adan: You can go to our website, Fioramara.com, go to the contact form there, and that goes right to me. Or, you can find me on LinkedIn. If you reach out to me on LinkedIn, I’d love to talk.

Ed: Fantastic. Final question then for you: What is a book or podcast you’d recommend to folks?

Adam: There are a couple of books that I like. One’s called Eat Like A Fish, written by Bren Smith. He started Green Wave, a nonprofit that’s promoting seaweed farming as not only a climate solution, but also as a way to make a living. I will mention that in my conversation with them has shown that the demand for seaweed from seaweed farming is lower than expected currently, but we’ll see where that goes.

In terms of other reading, I look to Al Gore and the Climate Reality Leadership Corps. If you have further interest, I would probably see what the Climate Reality Leadership Corps is pointing you to and read up on it.

Ed: Fantastic. Adam, thank you so much for your time, I really appreciate it!

Adam: You bet!

Our decision to join this program reflects the alignment of our goals: AirMiners provides critical support to emerging companies, does not take equity, and brings together experts and partners dedicated to climate solutions that focus on decarbonization. We look forward to learning from their network and leveraging their resources to amplify our impact.

This milestone comes after key achievements at Fiora Mara, including developing a deployable seaweed hatchery, growing plantlets from both gametophytes and spores on deployable grow lines in our hatchery, testing biodegradable materials on the ocean, launching our first prototype seaweed farm, and establishing vital partnerships. Participating in AirMiners Launchpad marks a pivotal step in our journey as we build toward scaling our solution and securing future investment.

We are excited for this next chapter in our journey to become a force in carbon sequestration

At Fiora Mara, we are committed to sustainable aquaculture and to cultivating seaweed in a way that benefits both the environment and the communities we serve. Recently, with our partnership with Hart Hatchery, we collected live seaweed from the waters off the coast of Long Island and began extracting the seaweed sorus (seeds) for re-planting. This is a second method of growing seaweed plantlets on grow lines, the first is the gametophyte(1,2) method, which was a huge success for us. This effort is part of our long-term strategy to source seaweed from the regions that we operate in, ensuring that we only grow plants that are well-suited to local ecosystems, avoiding any negative impact on their natural balance.

1. Collecting Live Seaweed from Long Island

In collaboration with Hartland Lobster, our team obtained live seaweed from the rich, biodiverse waters off Long Island. This step is key to our cultivation process, as we aim to support local biodiversity and create resilient, regionally adapted seaweed populations. By sourcing seaweed directly from the areas where we intend to operate, we ensure that the plants we grow are genetically diverse and well-suited to thrive.

2. Transporting to Our Pilot Seaweed Hatchery in New Jersey

Once the seaweed was collected, it was carefully transported to our pilot seaweed hatchery in New Jersey. The journey was managed with great attention to detail to preserve the health of the seaweed, ensuring that it arrived at our facility in optimal condition for the next phase of processing and cultivation.

3. Processing the Seaweed to Extract Sorus Tissue

At our hatchery, we began processing the live seaweed to encourage it to release sorus tissue, a crucial step in our seaweed cultivation process. Sorus contains spores that are essential for growing seaweed plantlets from scratch on our grow lines. The extraction requires precision and care to ensure the sorus is extracted properly, to help ensure optimal results.

4. 24 Hours of Careful Cultivation

After approximately 20 hours of processing, the sorus tissue was successfully released into our beakers. We then transferred it into our grow tanks, where it was kept in the dark for 24 hours to settle and stabilize. This incubation period is crucial for preparing the sorus to attach to our grow lines and to begin their next stages of development. Once the 24 hours passed, we exposed the sorus to light, which triggered the growth cycle and set the stage for the plantlets to begin developing.

5. Supporting Local Ecosystems Through Localized Cultivation

This successful process is an important step in Fiora Mara’s long-term goal of growing localized seaweed based on the varied areas that we operate. It is a way to ensure that our seaweed is adapted to their natural surroundings and by using local strains we promote an approach where we minimize the risks associated with introducing non-native species and promotes the growth of sustainable, resilient seaweed.

We are pleased with the success of this first big step of the grow process and look forward to expanding our efforts in other regions. With each step, Fiora Mara is closer to achieving its goal of growing seaweed around the world and capturing the massive amount of carbon that seaweed stores for the long term.

Step by Step – How we got here

Reaching this point has been a journey filled with challenges, learnings, and triumphs. Here’s how we got here:

1. Building and Preparing the Seaweed Hatchery: We began by designing, configuring, and building our seaweed hatchery. This facility would serve as the critical starting point for nurturing seaweed from its earliest stages to deployment readiness in the purposefully challenging environment of a shared warehouse space.
2. Obtaining Gametophytes: The process continued with sourcing gametophytes from Bigelow Labs, renowned for their expertise in ocean science and for their robust collection of live gametophytes from across the globe. These tiny organisms were the foundation of our work.
3. Hatchery Nurturing: At our seaweed hatchery, we processed the gametophytes, attaching them to grow lines and carefully nurturing them in our grow tank. This required constant monitoring, balancing of nutrients, and ocean water maintenance to ensure their health and growth.
4. Transition to Deployment: Once these microscopic organisms matured into plantlets on our grow lines – in our grow tank, we prepared them for deployment. This involved moving them to a specially designed capsule, optimized for their safe transition to the open water.
5. Farm Construction: Drawing on our earlier material studies, we constructed our pilot seaweed farm—a design that is scalable, eco-friendly, and perfectly suited to our mission of carbon sequestration.
6. The Launch: Finally, at the RETI Center, we launched our seaweed farm into the water. This moment was the culmination of months of preparation, research, and practice.

Reflecting on the First Step

The journey to this launch was not simply smooth sailing. At every stage, there was a sense of nervousness—a natural byproduct of attempting something new and uncharted. But that energy drove us. It pushed us to dig deeper into our research, refine our methods, and practice tirelessly until we could confidently execute each step.

This experience reminded us that progress isn’t just about having a great idea. It’s about translating that idea into action, one deliberate step at a time. We’ve learned that doing the work—in the lab, gathering supplies from ocean water to a chiller, and out on the water—is where true innovation happens. While this first launch was exhilarating, we’re looking ahead to our next steps with the confidence of a team that’s been through the gauntlet and emerged stronger.

What’s Next?

This launch is just the beginning. With the the lessons learned from this pilot, we’re ready to scale up our efforts and continue refining our approach. Next time we’ll be able to complete these tasks with the steadiness of experience and the excitement of knowing we’re contributing to a healthier planet.

We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished so far and grateful for everyone who’s been part of this journey. The first time is always the most exciting, but it’s also the foundation for what comes next. Stay tuned—we’re just getting started.

This achievement is significant for two reasons: first, it confirms that our innovative hatchery design works effectively, even when operated in a challenging, active warehouse environment. Second, it demonstrates that our methods for cultivating gametophytes into plantlets on grow lines perform exactly as intended.

With this success under our belts, we’re now preparing to take the next bold step. The seed string produced from this trial will soon be deployed on our uniquely designed seaweed farm, set to launch in the open ocean. Stay tuned as we continue pushing the boundaries of scalable, ocean-based carbon sequestration.