Coral Vita

Coral Vita works to solve the threat of global coral reef degradation. More than 50% of reefs are dead and over 90% are on track to die by 2050. This ecological tragedy, which threatens 25% of marine life, is also a socio-economic catastrophe. Coral reefs directly support 1B people globally and conservatively generate $30B annually via tourism, fisheries production, and coastal protection. Their loss will be disastrous to society and to all of life on Earth.

We use breakthrough methods to grow corals up to 50x faster (microfragmenting) while strengthening their resiliency to climate change (assisted evolution). Our business model can sustainably finance large-scale restoration projects through eco-tourism and selling restoration as a service (RaaS), and our methods scale so that each farm can potentially supply an entire nation’s reefs with diverse and resilient coral. Through our work, we help preserve ocean life and community welfare for future generations.

We are working to solve two problems: preserving dying coral reefs and scaling reef restoration.

Coral reefs are dying at frightening rates, which may cause cataclysmic challenges for society. Their death is driven by poor development practices, overfishing, pollution, and climate change. Reef degradation threatens fishing communities and their families, coastal residents exposed to more powerful storm surges, and industries & national economies dependent on the draw of reef attractions in over one hundred nations.

The process of coral farming, where fragments are grown in farms and then installed into reefs, is scientifically-proven to revitalize reef health and benefits. But restoration – which has existed for two decades – is primarily executed by non-profits using ocean-based nurseries. Such nurseries only grow limited species, cannot enhance their resiliency to climate change, and must be built for each target reef. This process, especially when tied to the grant/donation model, does not sufficiently scale to solve the problem.

Coral Vita is addressing these problems by working to scale restoration globally. By growing more diverse, resilient, and affordable coral sustained by a land-based commercial farming model, we can achieve unprecedented and needed levels of restoration to keep reefs alive despite the threats they face.

Coral Vita’s ultimate vision is to establish a global network of land-based coral farms supplying restoration projections with mass quantities of diverse, resilient, and cost-effective coral.

Our methods directly help restore and increase the resilience of the local environment, which is particularly important in fragile and degrading ecosystems like coral reefs. Outplanting corals has been proven by countless other practitioners to increase coral cover. As well, we take great care to promote species and genetic diversity in our work, while physically boosting the resiliency of coral fragments to stressors such as warming and acidifying oceans. This in turn strengthens the overall resilience of the local environment by bolstering reefs ability to survive deteriorating oceanic conditions due to climate change. Our work further stabilizes and increases natural biodiversity. Increasing coral cover not only improves the health of various coral species, but the relevant marine life that depend on reefs.

To support this work, we sell RaaS to customers that depend on reefs valuable ecosystem services, including resorts, developers, coastal insurers, cruise lines, governments, and corporate sponsors. We also turn our coral farms into revenue-generating tourism attractions where guests can pay to experience coral farming and even adopt or plant coral.

Emphasizing community-based stewardship into our restoration work is a key part of our model. Ultimately, reef health most directly impacts dependent communities. Coral reefs are found in over 100 nations globally. In many areas, they are sources of cultural heritage, medicines, food, jobs, and protection from storms. As reefs die, their livelihoods are jeopardized.

Building local capacity and integrating local knowledge is critical to the long-term success of both our projects and promoting marine health. Our farms further function as education centers for community members and students, hoping to inspire a new generation of caretakers. Our farm managers will ideally be trained reef scientists from the host country. And we work with locals like fishermen, training them to be part of our coral installation team.

In Grand Bahama, where we launched our pilot coral farm in May 2019, we’ve welcomed hundreds of Bahamian students, environmental groups, government officials, fishermen, and other community members to experience our work. Following Hurricane Dorian last year, we used our resources to engage in search and rescue, deliver aid, and raise funds for communities impacted by the storm. Coral Vita is committed here and beyond to empowering communities as we protect reefs.

By regenerating reefs, catalyzing a novel ecosystem restoration market, and using our work to educate the public and engage local stakeholders about the urgent need to protect coral reefs, we are well-aligned with the Third Dimension. Global reef degradation is one of the world’s most difficult problems, threatening biodiversity, livelihoods, prosperity, and stability. We tackle this challenge by kickstarting a ‘Restoration Economy’ through innovative science and a market-based approach. By both preserving reef health and integrating communities into our model, we work to ensure biodiversity continues thriving alongside inclusive economic opportunities for locals.

Because of Hurricane Dorian and Covid19, we altered our growth and fundraising schedule. We had initially planned to raise a Series A of several million dollars around mid-2021. Due to the nature of the storm and revenue fall-off from the pandemic, we just concluded a $2M seed round to transform our pilot coral farm in Grand Bahama into a state-of-the-art facility. Based on both the funding parameters described in the FAQ and our track record relative to the FAQ’s description, we most closely align with the Growth stage. We’ve already demonstrate coral farming efficacy, launched restoration projects, used our farm as both an education center for locals and tourism attraction, and have achieved scientific and R&D successes. While we focus on our Bahamas work over the next 18 months, we’re already building out our pipeline for farms, customers, partners, and investors for future countries.

Coral Vita has three main innovations focuses: ecological, commercial, and technological. 

As mentioned earlier, restoration is almost entirely carried out by small-scale ocean-based farms, which have several key limitations that impact restoration’s effectiveness. Ocean-based farms can only rear fast-growing branching species, leaving out slow-growing bouldering and massive corals that form the foundation for reef habitats. Such farms can do little to strengthen coral resiliency against climate change threats, which is critically important. As well, these underwater farms are at risk to bleaching events and boating accidents that could jeopardize projects. And finally, they must be set up and maintained near each target reef, which isn’t feasible given the scope of global reef degradation. Together with traditional non-profits’ dependency on grants on donations, the existing model simply doesn’t scale. 

Land-based farms support game-changing techniques. Microfragmenting unlocks critical species diversity and assisted evolution allows us to boost their resiliency. If we have sufficient land, we can expand until we can grow corals to restore reefs around an entire island or country, rather than establishing a network of unwieldy ocean-based farms. And our innovative commercial approach unlocks funding streams critical for sustaining the large-scale restoration needed to protect reefs. It also gives us a R&D budget to develop methods and tools to improve restoration, such as ways to improve the efficiency of outplanting, execute enhanced reef monitoring, or strengthen the resiliency of key aspects of the coral beyond just the animal such as the symbiotic algae or microbial communities.

There are several ways to consider this question: how many people we serve through restoring coral reefs, local education and employment via our coral farms/work, and digital awareness-building.

Due to Hurricane Dorian, coral farming operations only recommenced in March 2020. Growth cycles are ~6-12 months, at which point we’ll be able to start restoring reefs and impacting local communities. We project restoring one hectare of reef over in one year and nearly 140 hectares within five years, with local context determining how many people this will impact.

We employ six locals and have educated ~1500 people in Grand Bahama since launching, but this is largely on-hold from Covid19. We project employing 12 locals in and educating 3000 locals in one year, and employing 130 locals and educating 15,000 locals in five years. We also project educating 30,000 tourists (pending Covid19) in one year and 210,000 in five years.

We also use our work to promote awareness beyond the areas we physically work of the importance of protecting coral reefs. Through videos/articles about us, speaking engagements, and multimedia we’ve produced, we generated over 7 million impressions since launching Coral Vita. It’s difficult to say how many people we’ll reach in one and five years, and we appreciate that such work may not be directly considered “serving” constituents. But as the best thing to do for coral reefs is to stop killing them (which requires massively expanding awareness-building to people around the world), we consider this an important component of our work.

As a mission-driven company, Coral Vita’s foremost priority is ecological health of coral reefs. Actions are guided by prioritizing marine life health, as wells as by promoting the welfare of local communities and stakeholders. For example, our pilot’s Environmental Impact Assessment received local input and was approved by the Bahamian government.

We measure success and results through a rigorous monitoring process, tracking impact metrics before, during, and after each project. Social metrics include (but are not limited to): local jobs created, fishermen trained, students educated, and individuals engaged in restoration. Environmental metrics include coral cover change, transplant survivorship, sexual propagation of transplants, coral growth rates, changes in marine life population and species diversity, wave energy suppression, total reef area restored, Setting the standards for measuring these metrics is done in consultation with relevant experts such as coral scientists, reef managers, ecosystem economists, hydraulic engineers, and community leaders.

Full-time: 10

Part-time: 5

Contractors/other: 18

Between our staff, advisors, and partners we have the ideal team to implement a model to revolutionize and scale coral farming and jumpstart a Restoration Economy. We also incorporate a community-based approach to our work, hiring locals as much as possible to ensure capacity building is integrated into our work to improve efficacy and ensure stakeholders who rely on reefs the most benefit from their restoration.

Sam Teicher, Co-Founder and Chief Reef Officer of Coral Vita is a Forbes 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneur, formerly worked on climate adaptation policy at the White House, and leads external operations like fundraising, revenue generation, and marketing.

Gator Halpern, Co-Founder and President at Coral Vita, is a United Nations Young Champion of the Earth, formerly worked on development projects in Peru, Brazil, & South Africa, and leads internal operations like farm management, finances, and personnel.

Dr. Katey Lesneski, Director of Restoration Science at Coral Vita, received her PhD from Boston University with a focus on reef restoration and understanding resilience in endangered coral species.

Amir Matouk, Director of Aquaculture Operations at Coral Vita, is a coral husbandry expert who most recently designed complex large-scale systems at places like Atlantis and Sea World in Dubai. 

Joe Oliver, Director of Restoration Operations at Coral Vita, has 20+ years of coral aquaria, aquaculture, and marine husbandry experience.

Advisors include Dr. David Vaughan who pioneered microfragmenting, Dr. Ruth Gates before her passing who kickstarted assisted evolution, and rapid prototyping engineers like former Google X co-founder Tom Chi.

As previously discussed, we integrate a community-based approach to our business. While using our coral farms as both production facilities and eco-tourism attractions, they also function as marine education centers. Everyone from students to fishermen to government ministers can visit our farm and experience hands-on marine education to empower locals to be stewards for their ecosystems. As well, we emphasize hiring from the surrounding community as much as possible, building local capacity to ensure the benefits of our work are shared and the reefs themselves can be better protected in the first place. Ultimately, we hope our Bahamian farm and future farms will be managed by locals, ensuring that leadership roles are filled from the areas we work in.

In addition to quarterly Board meetings, our founders Sam and Gator do bi-monthly check-ins with all staff members to get dynamic feedback on what’s working well, what can be improved, and how people are doing. In addition to regular benefits and activities to build team camaraderie and morale, we’ve built in practices so that employees know they can rely on us for support during difficult times.

On a deeper level, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is something that's mattered to how we lead for years. As an example, Sam was a high school participant in Operation Understanding DC, a student representative to the Yale Intercultural Affairs Council during college, and co-founded the Yale School of the Environment's Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity Committee. Those values permeate throughout Coral Vita's leadership team.

Climate change is the greatest threat to the future of our civilization. It affects the safety of billions, the stability of nation states & communities, and access to sufficient resources to sustain a growing global population. The need to address climate change is urgent, and we know that the fate of our culture likely rests with the actions of our generation. Dedicating our lives to the issue of climate change is the only choice we have once we understand how much it will mean in the future. Becoming a Solver would provide me and Coral Vita with an incredible community and resources to more effectively implement our solution to protect the ecosystems that sustain us all.

While the financial support will certainly be a big help as we scale our work, what excites me most about MIT Solve is the opportunity to become part of such an incredible group of people. Spending time with and learning from fellow social entrepreneurs focusing on critical issues can offer crucial insights and knowledge. Together with connections to people throughout the Solve network that can help us better design and implement R&D projects, strategic mentoring and coaching, a platform to share our story and the need to protect (rather than just restore) coral reefs and dependent communities in the first place, and other in-kind offerings will be such an unprecedented boon to make our work more impactful, our lives easier, and our job even more enjoyable. 

While we have an incredible network of existing supporters together with our own staff and advisors, there is so much potential for more learning, mentoring, and introductions to a wide range of offerings that MIT Solve makes available. 

Business model: we are effectively pioneering a new way of doing business (selling coral restoration as a service), which gives us immense opportunites to both innovate while also learning from various fields that could provide valuable lessons we haven't considered.

Legal: a unique aspect of our work is that we ultimately plan to operate in the ~100 nations with coral reefs, which presents a range of legal issues from local coral regulations to business licenses to tax structuring.

PR: a huge part of our work is storytelling, and we are preparing to overhaul our brand and expand our financial, time and resource commitment to marketing.

Product distribution: we do B2B, B2G, and B2C sales - there is so much we can learn from to refine our existing approach while considering completely new options for us.

Tech: we have numerous R&D projects underway or under consideration, that span from coastal engineering to robotics to data analysis to AI & machine learning. There is so much potential for us to tap into within the MIT Solve community in this space.

From storytelling to advocacy to funding to engineering to innovation to deal sourcing to R&D collaboration, there are numerous entities or representative bodies that could enhance our ability to fulfill our mission. Among many examples within or adjacent to the MIT Solve community, these include: professors and staff at Oceans at MIT, Emerson Collective, Alphabet, NASA, NOAA, The Nature Conservancy, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Court, Comcast NBCUniversal, Schmidt Marine Technology Partners, and UNEP.

As we grow coral to restore dying reefs, our coral farms serve as education centers for youth and local community members. Empowering people who grow up alongside and rely on ecosystems is both critical and just for ensuring they both benefit from the bounty of a healthy environment and work to protect them is successful. Through in-person and digital learning, Coral Vita offers students opportunities to learn about why coral reefs matter, what's happening to them, what can be done to protect them, and how they can create future opportunities for themselves in the Restoration Economy. Given the scientific, engineering, technology, business, and creative nature of our work, we strive to integrate STEM (and STEAM) curriculum into our educational programming. This prize will enable us to scale up our work to empower local communities, build capacity, and train the next generation of caretakers to both protect the environment and reap the benefits of 21st century jobs that are tied to this mission.

Without describing to much about our specific projects, we see incredible opportunities for integrating AI & machine learning to enhance the efficacy, affordability, and potential impact of coral farming and reef restoration. In turn, by restoring and protecting reefs at scale, Coral Vita not only can preserve critically important and wondrous biodiversity but in turn the communities, economies, and nations that rely on healthy reefs' valuable ecosystem services globally. If coral reefs die, up to one billion people's livelihoods in over 100 countries and territories and 25% of marine life are threatened (despite taking up less than 1% of the ocean). There is no thriving, equitable, and sustainable future without healthy ecosystems of any kind, and particularly coral reefs. Our land-based coral farms, centered on a sustainable business model that incorporates scientific, technological, and industrial innovation, offer incredible potential to integrate and develop systems that utilize AI, machine learning, and data analysis do grow coral and restore reefs better. Which in turn benefits humanity and biodiversity by preserving coral reefs for future generations. This prize (both in terms of funding but more importantly partnerships) would significantly advance our mission and efforts in this space.