The Problem 

Coral reefs support ~1 billion people and 25% of marine life while generating $2.7 trillion annually through tourism, fisheries, and coastal protection. But 50% of reefs are dead and over 90% are projected to die by 2050. The best thing to do is to stop killing reefs by solving for climate change, pollution, and habitat destruction, but inaction on that front necessitates adaptation solutions. Coral farming is a scientifically-proven process to revitalize reef health. Yet traditional low-tech ocean-based farms cannot be scaled quickly enough to meet global degradation threats. They tend to grow limited species, can do little to increase  coral resiliency, and must be built near each reef. The current model is also almost entirely based on insufficient grants and donations that cannot sustainably finance critically needed ecosystem-scale restoration.The Solution 

Coral Vita’s land-based farms integrate breakthrough methods to accelerate coral growth up to 50x while enhancing their resilience to climate change. Diverse, hardy, and affordable coral can be grown en masse to supply restoration projects from centralized farms in countries around the world that support reefs. New technologies are being developed to enhance the speed, effectiveness, and reduce the cost of revitalizing reefs.  To support this scalable form of high-tech coral farming, Coral Vita is deploying a commercial model that can sustain large-scale reef restoration. The company sells restoration as a service to reef dependent customers and licenses proprietary tech and expertise to restoration practitioners to finance ecosystem-scale impact. 

Coral Vita’s Impact

Scaling impact is core to Coral Vita. We’ve already doubled the number of fish at a Grand Bahama restoration site while creating dozens of jobs and internships for Bahamians. And we are continuing to build partnerships with other coral farmers, working collectively to protect the ecosystems that sustain us all. Ultimately, we envision large-scale farms in every nation with reefs, catalyzing a Restoration Economy that preserves ocean health for future generations.  

– Sam Teicher, Chief Reef Officer

Why we invested

Existing models for coral reef restoration don’t scale. Coral farming for reef restoration has been in practice for several decades, but most projects utilise ocean-based nurseries which have narrow ecological and scaling impact, and are run by NGOs or scientists that rely on limited grants and donations. Coral Vita is the first entity to use a commercial land-based coral farming model to scale reef restoration. Katapult Ocean is ecstatic to be working with THE company directly impacting the health of coral reefs globally.

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