Hi Jeff, Co-founder of Blueseed here. Blueseed sunk when we couldn't raise the necessary funds. There were two reasons for this:
1. A single major investor changed his mind on this idea on the day we were supposed to close the round. We ended up closing the round anyway, but lost several other investors who became confused and hesitant after this turn of events. This made it harder to raise the big capital we needed in future rounds for obvious reasons.
2. Financing was *generally* tricky for a company like us at the time, since there was no established investor for what we were doing.
- The types of investors who financed tech companies or became LPs in VC funds found our primary revenue model appealing (we would take a small share of equity in all the startups that came through Blueseed) but these investors were (understandably) hesitant to invest in anything maritime related, since they had no experience in those waters. They worried that "ships are holes in the water you pour your money into".
- The types of investors who invested in maritime companies (cruise lines and the like) were totally happy to invest in us as a maritime play, but they didn't understand how our returns from equity based on the companies coming through Blueseed would ultimately succeed. They didn't understand the tech/VC investment model and were generally hesitant to play in that space.
Surprisingly though, USCIS, ICE, the Coast Guard, and local politicians (including members of Congress) were quite favorable to our plan at the time. We met with all of them and had preliminary plans on how to navigate the political waters. We also had more startups and tech companies interested in participating than we knew what to do with. (The one exception to this was an environmental group out there in the Monterey Bay, which seemed uninterested in our pro-startup and high skilled immigration arguments).
It was a great idea idea and perhaps someone, someday, will get another chance to pull it off in the future. Not having a true "Startup Visa" in this country is one of the dumbest policy stances this country has maintained for decades.
Granted, in the current political climate, I suspect the US Navy would be lobbing torpedos at Blueseed, regardless of how many unicorns would've been born had it been around this past decade.
Fascinating to get more of the backstory. Makes total sense that each class of investor would only buy in to 50% of the story, sorry to hear things got bottlenecked at the financing. I'm also astonished to hear y'all got such a friendly reception from the relevant agencies.
If you're able to say, would have this have been one of those...they were willing to interpret federal statute such that they'd conclude what y'all wanted to do was ok, or were y'all just on the right side of some fairly bright line rules?
But, that said, the US government finds ways around their own bright lines all the time, especially when it comes to UNCLOS or other international law. As such, getting the politics on our side was the long run play.
Hi Jeff, Co-founder of Blueseed here. Blueseed sunk when we couldn't raise the necessary funds. There were two reasons for this:
1. A single major investor changed his mind on this idea on the day we were supposed to close the round. We ended up closing the round anyway, but lost several other investors who became confused and hesitant after this turn of events. This made it harder to raise the big capital we needed in future rounds for obvious reasons.
2. Financing was *generally* tricky for a company like us at the time, since there was no established investor for what we were doing.
- The types of investors who financed tech companies or became LPs in VC funds found our primary revenue model appealing (we would take a small share of equity in all the startups that came through Blueseed) but these investors were (understandably) hesitant to invest in anything maritime related, since they had no experience in those waters. They worried that "ships are holes in the water you pour your money into".
- The types of investors who invested in maritime companies (cruise lines and the like) were totally happy to invest in us as a maritime play, but they didn't understand how our returns from equity based on the companies coming through Blueseed would ultimately succeed. They didn't understand the tech/VC investment model and were generally hesitant to play in that space.
Surprisingly though, USCIS, ICE, the Coast Guard, and local politicians (including members of Congress) were quite favorable to our plan at the time. We met with all of them and had preliminary plans on how to navigate the political waters. We also had more startups and tech companies interested in participating than we knew what to do with. (The one exception to this was an environmental group out there in the Monterey Bay, which seemed uninterested in our pro-startup and high skilled immigration arguments).
It was a great idea idea and perhaps someone, someday, will get another chance to pull it off in the future. Not having a true "Startup Visa" in this country is one of the dumbest policy stances this country has maintained for decades.
Granted, in the current political climate, I suspect the US Navy would be lobbing torpedos at Blueseed, regardless of how many unicorns would've been born had it been around this past decade.
Fascinating to get more of the backstory. Makes total sense that each class of investor would only buy in to 50% of the story, sorry to hear things got bottlenecked at the financing. I'm also astonished to hear y'all got such a friendly reception from the relevant agencies.
If you're able to say, would have this have been one of those...they were willing to interpret federal statute such that they'd conclude what y'all wanted to do was ok, or were y'all just on the right side of some fairly bright line rules?
We were on the right side of the bright lines.
But, that said, the US government finds ways around their own bright lines all the time, especially when it comes to UNCLOS or other international law. As such, getting the politics on our side was the long run play.