Founded in the Dominican Republic in 2020, SOS Carbon works with fishing communities to collect near-shore sargassum seaweed to prevent it from beaching, which negatively impacts the surrounding ecosystems, human health, and tourism. This collection approach also produces better quality sargassum for renewable life cycle solutions. SOS Carbon will test regulatory procedures to begin collection in Puerto Rico. All collection activities will be coordinated and validated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Puerto Rico’s Department of Natural Resources to ensure that collection efforts are responsible.

Thalasso Ocean is a Norwegian / Mexican company dedicated to sargassum management for local communities. They focus on deploying micro bio-refineries, transforming a hazard into a resource. They will construct and deploy a micro-biorefinery to process sargassum in Puerto Rico into valuable compounds that can be sold and integrated into high-value products.

Sway is a cleantech startup scaling seaweed-based, rapidly compostable replacements for plastics, beginning with flexible packaging suited for apparel, accessories, dry goods, and beyond. This pilot will focus on converting sargassum-derived compounds into home-compostable, seaweed-based thermoplastic resin for scalable, flexible packaging solutions.

PANGAIA is a material science company that brings problem-solving innovations to the world through premium lifestyle products—deeply embedded within premium sustainable fashion goods. PANGAIA will test the creation of a sargassum-based yarn and contribute its manufacturing practices and supply chain expertise to determine the economic feasibility of a sargassum-based supply chain.