Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has severely disrupted the energy market in Europe. To deal with this emergency, the EU is reducing its needs for energy imports and speeding up its green energy transition, as laid out in the REPowerEU plan of the European Commission. There is a great potential within the ocean for this transition, both in offshore wind and ocean energy. Through its BlueInvest initiative, the European Commission boosts innovation and investment in renewable energy technologies such as wave and tidal devices. The aim is to reach 40 GW of installed capacity by 2050, a target set in the EU Strategy on Offshore Renewable Energy.

QED Naval, a technology developer and project manager of tidal energy projects, has benefitted from BlueInvest, the EU-funded initiative which provides support and access to finance for early-stage businesses, SMEs and scale-ups in the blue economy. The company has developed an innovative, self-deploying tidal platform, which can slash the costs of deploying and maintaining turbines by around 60% and, through intelligent hydrodynamic design, improve yields from the site by up to 48%.

In 2020, QED Naval was nominated to an R&D project linking them in to a larger scheme that was seeking funding, equity and loans. They applied to the Cycle 3 of the BlueInvest Readiness Assistance programme with the aim of accessing finance.

During the 6-months coaching period, the BlueInvest coach worked closely with QED Naval to test its financial strategy, develop the team’s pitching skills, and introduce them to potential investors. QED Naval was connected to hundreds of investors.

The BlueInvest Readiness Assistance programme helped us to be investment ready and supported us with funding discussions says Keith Murray, Chief Commercial Officer of QED Naval

QED Naval started negotiation with three of the investors within two months of coaching. After only a year in their BlueInvest journey, the company had successfully raised €1 million from Seeds Crowdfunding. They later secured a place on the TIGER project, a big EU-funded project working on tidal energy, which led to an additional €3.5 million in funding.

QED Naval is now looking to advance its project development and to expand their company globally, notably towards China, which has shown a big interest for their technology.

BlueInvest showed excellent results and strong business impact on QED Naval fundraising journey, while furthering the decarbonisation ambitions of the EU Green Deal and the transformation of the EU’s energy market.

Interested? Apply now by registering to the BlueInvest Community and completing the dedicated Readiness Assistance application form. For any questions, reach out to us at lu_blueinvest@pwc.com