Hong Kong-based marine services startup, Clearbot closed its seed round of funding with Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund, Gobi Ventures, and participation from Earth Venture Capital, Asia Sustainability Angels, and CarbonX Capital.
In 2020, Clearbot was founded to revolutionize the marine industry by putting sustainability first to improve productivity in the sector. With Clearbot's robot-as-a-service (RaaS) infrastructure powered by AI, all-electric and self-driving 'Clearbot', Clearbot automates pollution recovery, surveillance and rescue, and goods delivery in urban waterways. intelligently and without manpower. The startup's latest Clearbot Neo model, created with Razer Inc., is available in Hong Kong and India with more than 10 bots already operating in these regions.
"With the support of world-class investors like Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund, Gobi Ventures, Earth Venture Capital, and Asia Sustainability Angels, among others, we are confident about our mission of disrupting the multi-billion dollar global marine services market to make the world more sustainable and increase data powered transparency in the industry," said Sidhant Gupta, Founder and CEO of Clearbot.
The startup will invest this funding in product development and R&D to improve operational efficiency in different environmental conditions and expand further into South East Asia. Clearbot will also invest in research to turn data into insights for clients in compliance with ESG standards, allowing them to optimize their business practices for sustainable development in the marine sector.
Combining autonomous navigation with data analytics and on-demand solutions, the startup has developed the first autonomous electric vessel capable of operating autonomously across multiple waterways at unprecedented speed and efficiency. With Clearbots, we can envision a future in which our urban waterways are powered by electric, intelligent bots that make various kinds of marine tasks safe, sustainable, and data-centric. The data obtained from Clearbot will not only help companies and governments identify potential areas of improvement within their operations but also help them to develop a deeper understanding of their current performance so that they can make informed decisions on how to improve their business in the future.
Clearbot robots will help cities meet their ecological targets as more than 3% of global CO2 emissions come from the marine services sector alone. With the rapidly growing world population and the growing demand for water and food in urban areas, investing in clean and smart technologies to upgrade the marine services sector is critical to mitigating the challenges.
“Civilization thrives aside the water flows, which are our resourceful rivers and oceans. But we are destroying, and polluting them with millions of tons of plastics and garbage every year. As 95% of plastic in our ocean is transported by 10 major rivers, 8 of which are in Asia. The war against climate change cannot miss the operations towards ocean technology.
Today, we are thrilled to back Clearbot, a dynamic technology combination of robotics and ocean tech. As the founders are both Gen Z, Clearbot is truly created by and for the next generation, who will be at the frontier in our battle against climate change.” said Linh Nguyen, General Partner of Earth Venture Capital.
Press release by Earth VC
Contact the communication department for more information: marketing@earth.vc
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