$20M Ocean Carbon Raise, $70M Research Ship Ask Lead Impact Summit

Ocean scientists and entrepreneurs dominated Day 2 of the Transformative Impact Summit on Sept. 27, 2026. They pitched an ocean "antacid" for carbon removal and warned that the decades-old data behind hurricane forecasts is at risk. No formal decisions were made. The record instead offers a list of specific capital asks, from a $20M Series B to $5M–$20M blocks of rooftop energy financing, as speakers named funding gaps across climate, health and the arts.

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• Planetary launches $20M Series B for ocean carbon removal, citing about 8,100 tons removed to date
• Bermuda ocean institute seeks about $70M to replace a 45-year-old research vessel
• Bioregional leaders say a top movement funder pulled out this year, while smallholders stay locked out of carbon markets
• Investor offers $5M–$20M blocks to put solar and batteries on existing buildings
• Media leaders say outrage algorithms drive news avoidance and that nature stories spread five times faster than climate stories
• Bergen Family Foundation launches with plans for "living endowments" and artist residencies

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Oceans Pitched as Carbon Sink, Data Lifeline

1 big thing: The longest block of the day covered ocean carbon removal and ocean monitoring. Two organizations put hard numbers on what they need.

The basics: Ocean alkalinity enhancement adds alkaline material to seawater. The goal is to counter acidification and draw down carbon dioxide.

Why it matters: Mike Kelland, CEO of Planetary, cited a UN "Overshoot" report that puts the world on track for about 1.8°C of warming. He said removal needs run roughly 23 gigatons a year, and land-based methods such as trees and direct air capture may reach about 15.

Where things stand: Planetary operates in Halifax, Nova Scotia. "We give the ocean an antacid," said Kelland. The company has scaled from 6 tons in 2022 toward about 13,000 tons this year. It has published work in Nature Communications Earth and Environment.

Kelland pointed to a buyer called Frontier and said "they've committed to purchase about $31 million worth of our removals over the next 5 years." He also said governments are beginning to buy carbon removal. The company's $20M Series B round is just launching.

Planetary's safeguards include:

• A "stop-trigger framework" with pH, suspended solids and heavy metals thresholds
• A weekly Bedford Basin baseline dating to 1994
• A "Two-Eyed Seeing Committee" that blends Mi'kmaq knowledge with Western science

"If anything happens that we don't like the look of, we turn it off," said Kelland. He said research so far shows positive results. He acknowledged adverse effects are possible if thresholds are exceeded.

The other side: Kelland took aim at a rival approach after what he called a burst carbon-removal bubble. "So direct air capture is looking like it won't be really a viable solution," he said. He also argued that no solution should be excluded "for philosophical reasons."

Data under strain: Mark Guishard, COO and professor of practice at the ASU Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS), described the world's longest continuous deep-ocean time series. It dates to 1954 and is largely funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation. He said the upper Sargasso Sea has warmed 1.2°C in 40 years. "It lends itself to maybe as much as 20-mile-per-hour stronger hurricanes, which can bump them up into the next category," said Guishard. Monitoring data, he said, "is fundamental, and it's being threatened right now."

Decisions and stakeholder impacts: No commitments were made. The asks were:

• Planetary: $20M in investment
• BIOS: about $1M for a glider workshop and testbed hub
• BIOS: a vessel replacement estimated at about $70M, which Guishard called "easily an 8-figure ask"
• VELAMAR: corporate introductions

Daniela Fernandez, founder, CEO and managing partner of VELAMAR and founder of Sustainable Ocean Alliance, said corporate ocean interest has moved past ESG marketing. "It's actually about compliance and liability and risk factors," said Fernandez. She also cited a statistic that 60% of publicly listed companies depend on the ocean.

What's next: Guishard described an early-stage islands resilience network being built with Hawaii's Pacific RISA team. Elliott Bayev, summit founder and host, argued that this kind of coordination needs dedicated, funded staff. "Who pays for that team? Which island nation is going to pay for that? It's a public good," said Bayev.

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Bioregional Movement Loses Funder, Names Capitalism

Why it matters: Panelists said floods, watersheds and carbon markets cross borders that governments rarely coordinate across. They also said the money supporting local stewardship is shrinking.

Where things stand: Susanna Choe, founder of Bioregional Embassy, said the embassy began within the UN system. She now works locally in the Hudson Valley estuary, which includes 26 subwatersheds. On floods, she said "people are not coordinating across jurisdictions to plan and adapt and deploy resources accordingly." She called AI "just a tool" and warned about data centers' water and mineral use.

Pam Pascual, founder of Terra Twin, builds digital twins for bamboo in Mindanao, Philippines. Her approach aggregates smallholders who are otherwise shut out of carbon markets. "You have to be a large landowner to actually access these markets," said Pascual.

The other side: Marcelo Shama, president of Carbono Brasil Coop, recounted activism at COP16 in Cancún. The protest targeted the lack of Indigenous consultation on carbon projects in Acre, Brazil. He warned that "any green assets, it's a knife with two sides," even as his co-op develops biome, water and sanitation credits.

Asked about barriers, Choe answered bluntly: "If I can be honest, capitalism." She also named competition for scarce funding. "One of the largest funders of the movement pulled out earlier this year, and that's been really devastating for the movement," said Choe. She now frames bioregionalism as "localism" to avoid an adversarial stance.

Decisions and stakeholder impacts: Shane Cobb-Adams, co-founder and strategic advisor of The Four Cups and Seeding Change, said budgets and time must shift toward trust with Indigenous communities. His work includes projects with the Lenape in upstate New York. "Part of the challenge that we find is really building the relational capital with the local wisdom keepers," said Cobb-Adams. Indigenous communities and smallholders stand to gain if that shift happens. Large-landowner carbon models face pressure. No decisions were made. The panel closed with a call for maps of local actors and for mutual aid.

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Investor Offers Rooftop Power on Existing Buildings

Why it matters: The offer targets existing real estate rather than farmland. It was framed as relief for energy strain driven by data centers.

Where things stand: Adi Soozin, investor and advisor at Heritage Origen Fund, argued that economic development "always starts with job creation." She described pairing Tier 4 data centers with vertical farms as a tax-advantaged component. Her direct ask was to owners of existing buildings. "We will pay for it to be put on your property, and then we become your behind-the-meter power supplier," said Soozin. She added: "We deploy in blocks of $5 to $20 million for those projects."

The basics: A behind-the-meter supplier generates power on-site for a building, rather than delivering it through the utility grid.

The other side: Soozin said backup machines can run on diesel, biofuels or hydrogen. Diesel would be used when alternatives are unavailable, a trade-off building owners and climate advocates may want to scrutinize.

She also cited a Munich case where paying upstream farmers to go organic cost far less than building filtration. She described "almost a 49-cent savings per cubic foot of water."

Decisions and stakeholder impacts: Eric Amyot, managing partner of Regenerative Development Corp and co-founder of ESHO, urged listening before acting. He cited more than 300 place-based projects over 32 years. "We have all the data. God, please no more data," said Amyot. He offered VLAS, the Verified Living Asset Standards, which are modeled on ANSI, ISO and IEEE frameworks.

Mimi Ito, founder of Wingstone, criticized fragmented smart-city efforts. No agreements were reached, though panelists signaled interest in collaborating.

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Media Leaders Target Outrage Algorithms

Why it matters: Speakers framed negative news as a public-health problem. They pitched tools to push other narratives to audiences beyond the already converted.

Where things stand: Stephanie Sharis, CEO of Good News Network, cited research on how fear drives the news business:

• Negative superlatives generate 63% more clicks.
• Fear-signaling headlines have nearly tripled in 20 years.
• 42% of people now avoid news.

She quoted an internal Facebook memo: "Our algorithms exploit the human brain's attraction to divisiveness." She also noted that solar out-generated coal in the U.S. for the first time in May. Good News Network plans a calendar product and two documentaries in early 2027.

Raamayan Ananda, founder and CEO of Culturas, described a culture graph spanning 40+ platforms. "If we cannot move culture, then our solutions remain with the converted," said Ananda. Rafael, founding partner at BBMG, said 65% of young people globally are disengaging from climate. "Nature stories, nature memetics, are traveling at 5 times the rate of climate memetics," he said.

The other side: Asked about misuse, Ananda rejected a "Cambridge Analytica direction." He said "we have an ethical charter, and that ethical charter says who we can work with and who we can't."

Decisions and stakeholder impacts: Culturas is an event sponsor. Ananda disclosed that the firm gave Bayev in-kind equity, making him a shareholder. Bayev called the platform "Palantir-level technology applied for good." BBMG is pursuing consortia, including with iCivics, for a "new story of democracy."

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New Foundation Aims to Free Artists' Time

Why it matters: Panelists said artists lose creative time to fundraising and administration. A new funder is now seeking donations and land.

Where things stand: Vaughn Bergen, founder and director of Art For Impact, is from the family behind ACA Galleries, which was founded in 1932 as the "People's Gallery." He launched the Bergen Family Foundation. It has four pillars: inner-work "alignment," living endowments, "ripples" impact metrics and land residencies. "So we want to bring forth living endowments," said Bergen. He announced Bayev as the newest board member.

Decisions and stakeholder impacts: Panelists described art as structured healing:

• Lexi Traub explained why she avoids hard-to-control mediums for emotionally flooded clients. "We're gonna not give them a medium like watercolor that's very difficult to control," she said.
• Omer Golan, founder and CEO of My What If Foundation, is a bombing survivor who lost his hearing and his ability to play music. His foundation offers a free AI narrative platform in English, Hebrew, Arabic, Ukrainian and Russian.
• Ekaterina Sky, impact artist at Ekaterina Sky Studio, described a community mural in fire-hit Altadena. A woman there who "lost her home and she didn't smile for 6 months" smiled for the first time.

What's next: The foundation seeks tax-deductible donations and land for its first residency next year.

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Minor Items

• Family planning in Nigeria: Klau Pakos, CEO and co-founder of Lafiya, said the group has counseled over 1 million women, at $5 per woman-year of protection, amid USAID cuts.
• Open ed-tech: Lauren Lichtman, co-executive director of Learning Equality, urged funding for the free, offline Kolibri platform and warned that closed procurement creates dependency.
• Psychedelic approvals: Marissa Feinberg, co-founder of The Gateway, cited 7,000 certified ketamine clinics, up from 2,800 in 2024, and Eli Lilly's $2.8B–$3.8B Atai Beckley acquisition.
• Science culture: The Divinity School plans an accredited master's degree and an anthology of 10-year R&D proposals, each with a hypothetical $50M budget.
• Closing mission: Bayev restated the summit's three goals: amplify, break silos and get people funded.

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Looking Ahead

Feinberg said the first FDA-approved psychedelic is two to three quarters away. Good News Network's documentaries are slated for early 2027. The Bergen Family Foundation's first residency is targeted for next year.