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RanMarine: innovative ocean-cleaning – supported by BlueInvest

News article 13 March 2025 Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries 3 min read

RanMarine Megashark, with an operator, sailing on a waterway collecting waste
The MegaShark, a vessel designed to tackle waterway waste, was inspired by the whale shark which filters plankton from the water through its wide mouth.©RanMarine

RanMarine, a Dutch startup, offers innovative solutions to fight water pollution. It has developed autonomous water-cleaning devices that not only effectively remove plastic waste but also address other major environmental challenges such as oil pollution and harmful algae blooms.

The plastic waste challenge

Initially, RanMarine focused mainly on tackling floating plastic pollution. The company devised a device that would autonomously navigate the water’s surface and collect plastics, like a robotic vacuum cleaner cleaning a floor. 

The team quickly discovered a crucial insight about water pollution priorities: even if removing floating plastic waste remained vital for long-term environmental health, the lack of direct accountability meant that few people were willing to fund its cleanup. But ‘when we expanded our scope to tackle immediate threats like toxic algae blooms – which directly impact local businesses, drinking water, and public health – we found eager customers ready to invest in solutions,’ explains Richard Hardiman, CEO of RanMarine. 

Today, RanMarine’s main clients are a mix of marinas and ports, city offices and municipalities, and several commercial clients. This shift revealed the true potential of scaling up their technology.

CEO Richard Hardiman in the RanMarine workshop
CEO Richard Hardiman

It’s not just plastic that needs to be cleaned up

As the company shifted focus to include algae removal, ‘we suddenly found that there was a lot of government focus on removal’ of harmful algae blooms, particularly in the USA and Europe. Richard says: ‘Our systems could do exactly the same thing, and the need was urgent and had available funding.’

RanMarine has developed two main platforms for their anti-pollution robots, the smaller WasteShark and the newer, larger, MegaShark platform. Both products are commercially available and are purchased depending on the clients’ needs for bigger or smaller units.

The WasteShark has been specially designed to reach areas inaccessible to other vessels and waste collecting units.©RanMarine
The WasteShark has been specially designed to reach areas inaccessible to other vessels and waste collecting units.©RanMarine

The flexibility of RanMarine’s technology became its biggest asset: their Autonomous Surface Vehicles (ASVs) are able to target several pollutants with minimal modifications. This adaptability has proven invaluable, as it has allowed the company to enter different markets and scale up without having to overhaul their entire product line. 

Collecting data on water quality

Moreover, their ASVs are capable of collecting detailed water quality data while cleaning. By pairing the advanced GPS systems of the ASV and water probes, they were able to measure parameters such as pH levels, temperature, and dissolved oxygen. ‘We suddenly realised that we could build up cloud maps of what is in the water while we’re cleaning it,’ Hardiman says.

WasteShark cleaning Port of Toronto harbour
RanMarine’s solution is in a variety of environments in 33 markets around the globe.©PortsToronto

BlueInvest and the investor perspective

After securing private investment, RanMarine is now looking at the public and listed markets as options to raise capital.

The mentorship and strategic guidance from BlueInvest have been instrumental in this development. ‘BlueInvest is great when it comes to understanding the investor perspective,’ says Hardiman. ‘Our coach was really knowledgeable and showed us that you can have the perfect innovation and technology, but if you can’t make yourself understood in a pitch, then it won’t matter.’ 

While RanMarine had originally focused largely on the R&D process, their BlueInvest coach helped them to focus more on the business side in order to seek further investment.

Beyond the individual coaching, Hardiman also found value in the BlueInvest webinars, where industry experts and fellow entrepreneurs shared insights on scaling, securing funding, and navigating the blue economy. ‘Hearing from other startups about their challenges and how they overcame them helped put things into perspective. You don’t feel like you’re figuring everything out alone.’

BlueInvest

BlueInvest is the EU’s innovation and investment platform for the blue economy, offering business coaching, fundraising support, and networking opportunities for ocean technology companies. Interested individuals can register with the BlueInvest Community to explore programme features and opportunities or contact lu-blueinvest@pwc.lu.

Details

Original Publication from Author Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries

WasteShark the new device that removes floating debris from water

The climate emergency is not the only environmental issue the world is struggling to solve. Plastic products clog our oceans, threatening marine life and polluting the water. At current rates plastic is predicted to outweigh all the fish in the sea by the year 2050. In Holland, a new device is a small sign of hope. ‘WasteShark’ is a remotely controlled device that collects rubbish from the water.

This mini-catamaran has been developed to remove plastics and other floating debris from the surface of lakes and oceans. Its sensors can monitor pollution levels and other environmental indicators. It is electrically powered, emission-free and can collect hundreds of kilos of rubbish at a time. Richard Hardiman is the founder of Ranmarine Technologies, the company responsible for Waste Shark:

“What we’re trying to do is create a small enough vessel that will get into tight spaces where waste collects, particularly in the harbours and the ports, and stop all that waste being taken out into the greater ocean.

“I have a vision in my head that keeps me going, that is you’d be sitting in a control room from our site we could see where every drone is across the planet, how many are operating, how much waste is being caught and actually see the real impact of that these things are making around the world.”

This is one of the projects that received support from the European funds allocated to making plastic circular. Ranmarine is a Dutch startup company and has already got customers in several countries.

Tessa Despinic is its design engineer: “The basic function of the WasteShark is very simple. It just swims around and collects trash from the surface. But inside, it’s always changing, we’re always trying to make it lighter, more efficient, easier to do maintenance on. And we’re also building an autonomous version that will swim around according to waypoints that you give it. So we’re always working on that and making it better.”

Read the full article by Euro News article

Garbage-collecting aqua drones and jellyfish filters for cleaner oceans

A Roomba-like ocean trash collector modelled on a whale shark and a microplastic filter made from jellyfish slime could prevent litter from entering our oceans and help tackle a growing problem that poses threats to wildlife, deters tourists and impacts on coastal economies.

The cost of sea litter in the EU has been estimated at up to €630 million per year. It is mostly composed of plastics, which take hundreds of years to break down in nature, and has the potential to affect human health through the food chain because plastic waste is eaten by the fish that we consume.

‘I’m an accidental environmentalist,’ said Richard Hardiman, who runs a project called WASTESHARK. He says that while walking at his local harbour one day he stopped to watch two men struggle to scoop litter out of the sea using a pool net. Their inefficiency bothered Hardiman, and he set about trying to solve the problem. It was only when he delved deeper into the issue that he realised how damaging marine litter, and plastic in particular, can be, he says.

‘I started exploring where this trash goes – ocean gyres (circular currents), junk gyres, and they’re just full of plastic. I’m very glad that we’re now doing something to lessen the effects,’ he said.

Hardiman developed an unmanned robot, an aqua drone that cruises around urban waters such as harbours, marinas and canals, eating up marine litter like a Roomba of the sea. The waste is collected in a basket which the WasteShark then brings back to shore to be emptied, sorted and recycled.

The design of the autonomous drone is modelled on a whale shark, the ocean’s largest known fish. These giant filter feeders swim around with their mouths open and lazily eat whatever crosses their path.

Read the full article by Horizon article