A Cincinnati startup developing the “Roomba of the sea” is looking to raise more than $1 million in funding as it continues to gain traction for its product across the U.S.
Clean Earth Rovers, which is developing autonomous technology to monitor water quality and clean plastic and pollution out of waterways, has set a goal to raise just more than $1.2 million via crowdfunding site Wefunder.
Michael Arens, co-founder and CEO, declined to disclose details of the campaign – federal regulations restrict publicity while companies are actively raising – but said it would represent a major step up. Clean Earth Rovers has raised $250,000 in capital and grant funding to date to build out its product and acquire new customers, most recently with a $100,000 friends-and-family round in June 2022.
Arens said Clean Earth Rovers continues to gain traction in the market. Based on conversations with early-stage and angel investors, he said the company decided to take a more serious look at crowdfunding.
Fellow Cincinnati startups Homeshake, Really Good Boxed Wine and GoSun have also recently launched campaigns on sites Wefunder, SeedInvest and StartEngine, respectively, as traditional venture capital deal flow slows.
“A lot of investors see what's going on with the economy and are zipping up their pockets, and if they are showing high levels of interest, they're pushing the needle on the bare minimums to receive an investment,” Arens told me.
“We think what we're doing is really compelling and it’s a mission people can get behind. This is a cool opportunity to open the door to our networks and have the people who have been supportive of us be a part of this long term.”
Arens, a Xavier University alum, co-founded Clean Earth Rovers in 2019 with a team that largely includes XU and University of Cincinnati graduates. The company, he said, is the only startup based in the U.S. developing this type of solution.
The company’s “Plastics Piranha,” an autonomous rover, works much like a Roomba vacuum but on water. It skims the surface to physically remove waste and debris, including trash, fish, oil and algae.
Clean Earth also has developed “datapods” or buoys with sensors that can remotely monitor water quality and detect data on harmful toxins like blue-green algae or E. coli.
So far, the company has celebrated deployments in California and Florida, the latter of which includes ongoing cleanup and remediation following Hurricane Ian, a Category 4 storm that hit in the Naples area in September 2022. A pilot with the city of Newport Beach, Calif., is scheduled to kick off this month.
The company has shifted its target customer from marine owners to municipalities and public works offices. The latter have larger budgets and can deploy more units at scale, Arens said.
Clean Earth Rovers also is focusing on leading with its data solution. It serves as its “foot in the door,” he said.
“Right now, customers are excited primarily because it's so much more efficient and innovative than current practices,” Arens said. “We estimate we're about 10 times more efficient than a human worker managing debris, and safer. With our datapods, these solutions are about 30 times cheaper than existing handheld monitoring systems.”
The Wefunder campaign launched last week and is open now to friends, family and customers ahead of a public launch Feb. 23.
In terms of the raise, funds will be used to build out inventory versus building to order – many early customers are looking to buy more than one device or system at a time, Arens said – and support and further grow its team. Clean Earth Rovers is currently at six employees with six advisers.
Arens said the goal is slow, controlled growth. How many positions the company adds depends on the success of the Wefunder campaign and how fast it expands its current customer contracts. Clean Earth has secured $300,000 in customer commitments so far in the first quarter of 2023.
“We’ve had a lot of really great learning experiences now that we’ve gotten our hands in the mud,” he said.
