INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
What lies beneath the murky depths SolarCity co-founder Peter Rive wants to help you and the scientific community find out
drone maker OpenROV and sea sensor developer Spoondrift
They can help you shoot awesome video footage, track waves and weather, spot fishing and diving spots, inspect boats or infrastructure for
different perspective of something we know pretty well
sea is crowded with competing drones
There are more expensive professional research-focused devices like the Saildrone, DeepTrekker and SeaOtter-2, as well as plenty of
consumer-level devices like the $800 Robosea Biki, $1,000 Fathom ONE and $5,000 iBubble
The $1,700 Sofar Trident, which requires a cord to a surface buoy to power its three hours of dive time and two meters per second speed,
sits in the middle of the pack, but Sofar co-founder David Lang things Trident can win with simplicity, robustness and durability
The question is whether Sofar can become the DJI of the water, leading the space, or if it will become just another commoditized hardware
maker drowning in knock-offs.From left: Peter Rive (chairman of Sofar), David Lang (co-founder of OpenROV) and Tim Janssen (co-founder and
CEO of Sofar)Spoondrift launched in 2016 and raised $350,000 to build affordable ocean sensors that can produce climate-tracking data
million in funding from True Ventures and National Geographic, which was also one of its biggest Trident buyers
progress of climate change and other ecological issues
We gave everyone GPS sensors and cameras and got better maps
data back to the startup, but Rive says many customers are eager to
The startup believes it can find ways to monetize that data in the future, which is partly what attracted the funding from Rive and fellow
