Plus: These 50 Top Creators Earned $853 Million Last Year |
Nestled along the southern coast of Grand Bahama is the world’s first commercial land-based coral farm for reef restoration, Coral Vita. Their facility is not just growing coral, but an entirely new industry. This month, Coral Vita closed an $8 million Series A round led by Builders Vision, bringing their total funding to $15 million. This new financing will go toward expansion in the Middle East—where they’re currently designing the biggest coral farm in the world—as well as research and development initiatives.
The reef restoration startup was founded in 2015 by Sam Teicher and Gator Halpern, who made the 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneurs list in 2019. While coral takes up less than 1% of the sea floor, it supports the livelihoods of approximately 1 billion people and generates $10 trillion per year by providing sites for biodiversity, tourism and medical innovation. Teicher says that we must start thinking of coral reefs as an infrastructure.
But the world’s already small supply of coral reefs is disappearing quickly due to climate change, ocean acidification and human activity. Coral Vita is on a mission to change that by selling restoration as a service to hotels, developers, governments and other entities who depend on the vast benefits of coral. Using the controlled environment at their farms to grow coral in months rather than decades, they’re able to plant new coral back into degraded reefs. The startup has reached significant milestones such as winning Prince William’s Earthshot prize of £1 million in 2021 and landing partnerships with nature-positive brands like Corona and Cariuma.
“While we have been banging the drum about reef restoration being a viable commercial industry for a long time, we finally turned a corner and started to see millions of dollars of contracts flow into doing reef restoration,” Halpern said.
Teicher and Halpern met during graduate school at Yale University’s School of Environment. After bonding over a shared love for the ocean, they grappled with how to make a meaningful impact in the blue economy beyond the traditional academic and NGO space.“It felt like I was writing these papers that were the obituary of these ecosystems and not actually going out and actively trying to change that fate,” Halpern said.
One day on a back porch in New Haven, Connecticut, Teicher and Halpern realized that focusing on revenue-generation could actually impact their environmental goals for the better.
“We are showcasing that ‘for profit, for nature and for good’ is a viable approach that we can do good and do well in,” Teicher said. The journey to this Series A funding has not come without setbacks. As an environmental startup, Coral Vita’s success is vulnerable to circumstances out of their control. Hurricane Dorian, a category 5 storm, destroyed their entire coral farm in 2019. While the storm left devastating impacts, Teicher and Halpern were encouraged by how their regeneration efforts had already touched the local community. Coral reefs provide a natural seawall during tropical storms by breaking wave energy before the tides reach shore.
“We literally saw how healthy reefs saved lives in our area while a few miles away, where the reef was depleted, many lives were lost,” Halpern said. “We decided that the only thing to do was double down on our commitment here in Grand Bahama to build our next iteration of the coral even bigger and better than the last.”
Talk next week, Alexandra, Zoya and Alex
P.S. welcome Alexandra, the Under 30 intern for the summer. She wrote this intro! Have any more tips for her? Reach her at ameier@forbes.com. |
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 | | Jake Shane, no. 37 on the Forbes Top Creators list. Photography by Cody Pickens for Forbes |
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| Last week, Forbes launched its fourth annual Top Creators list, highlighting the top earners across social media. Some content superstars returned, like MrBeast, who remains at No. 1 with $85 million in annual earnings, or no. 5 Alex Cooper, whose podcast empire bumped her earnings up to an estimated $32 million this year. Newcomers joined this year’s list, too: Brit Steven Bartlett, No. 11 for his podcast The Diary of A CEO, is on track to expand his European fanbase to the U.S. (Check out more about his journey here, including why he’s turned down $100 million deals.) And Wisdom Kaye—who just might be the chicest man on TikTok—came in at No. 48. See the full list here. |
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-The ball is in Sequel’s court. This week, the 30 Under 30 startup, founded by CEO Greta Meyer and CMO Amanda Calabrese, announced they’re the official tampon sponsor of the Indiana Fever. It’s part of a growing trend for women’s teams to bring on women’s health companies as sponsors: The New York Liberty announced a deal with feminine care company LOLA in April. In June, The Honey Pot was named exclusive body care partner of the Atlanta Dream, and Phoenix Mercury partnered with Aunt Flow. Read more here.
-2024 Forbes Under 30 company Harvey AI, which builds custom AI assistants for law firms, this week announced a $300 million Series E that valued the startup at $5 billion. The news comes just four months after Harvey, which was founded by Winston Weinberg, was valued at $3 billion in a $300 million Series D led by Sequoia. This latest round was co-led by Coatue and Kleiner Perkins.
-Fireflies.ai, a transcription platform that automatically takes notes from meetings, this month announced it reached unicorn status with a $1 billion valuation. Cofounded by 2022 Under 30 listers Krish Ramineni and Sam Utodong, the valuation boost came from a tender offer as opposed to a new funding round (this means existing shares, usually from employees, were bought out from investors). Fireflies claims it has been profitable since 2023. |
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-Looking to elevate your summer style? Subscription service Nuuly, from the creators of Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie, is disrupting the fashion rental market. Renters get their pick of six apparel pieces per month with their subscription and the flexibility to buy or return them. Nuuly’s ability to obtain almost half of their inventory at cost from its sister companies is leading to substantial revenue and subscriber growth (Yahoo Finance).
-The AI Revolution could mean trouble for your electricity bill this month. The sweeping spread of computing centers is putting a strain on the nation’s power grid. The number of data centers in the U.S. doubled in the past three years, requiring 10 times the electrical power as traditional search engines. Electricity consumption is moving toward a record high and American taxpayers will pick up the tab, particularly in the Northeast (CBS News).
-Time to BeReal… again. The photograph-in-the-moment social media app that launched in 2020 and went viral in 2022 has since seen declining in user engagement. But now, they’re positioning themself for a comeback. Their tactic? Advertising across other apps owned by Voodoo Games (which acquired BeReal in 2024 for €500 million), tapping micro influencers at college campuses and sponsoring parties. (Business Insider) |
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