BGF backs Sulmara to accelerate low-carbon offshore innovations
BGF, an investment firm specializing in venture capital for small and mid-sized businesses across the UK and Ireland, has invested USD18.9 million in Sulmara, a Scottish company providing survey and inspection services to the offshore wind and energy markets. Sulmara aims to capitalize on the growing opportunities in renewable energy.
The company’s rapid growth and success stem from its expertise and innovative use of technology to deliver more efficient, low-carbon survey solutions. Sulmara’s leadership in sustainable offshore services is highlighted by its distinction as the first service provider in the offshore wind sector to sign the Climate Pledge. Additionally, the company recently achieved carbon neutrality certification under the BSI PAS 2060:2014 standard.
Autonomous and uncrewed
BGF’s investment is set to drive Sulmara’s ongoing growth, fuelling developments in advanced technologies such as uncrewed surface vessels (USVs), autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), next-generation geophysical sensors and sophisticated data solutions. The ability to use these advanced systems both alongside and with traditional survey vessels improves both the quality and turnaround time of data while significantly reducing the environmental impact of offshore projects.
Sulmara is already delivering benefits for major customers around the world that include Ørsted, Chevron and Seaway7 using remote and innovative systems, and BGF’s investment will enable further complex and low-carbon data collection in environments that pose a huge challenge to conventional methodologies.
As part of BGF’s investment, Richard Pugh, Mike Sibson and Davis Larssen will join the board as non-executive directors, collectively adding over 50 years of experience in leading and investing in energy services and technology businesses.
Specialist technology
Kevin McBarron, founder and CEO of Sulmara, said: “BGF’s investment comes at an important moment for the company as we look to build on the success of our technology and innovation efforts to date and to accelerate their introduction to our service offerings. This significant investment of growth capital is a vote of confidence in our strategy from an established investment partner in BGF. The international growth and breadth of services now delivered demonstrates that our approach is also resonating with our clients and supports their need to reduce Scope 3 emissions as the path to net zero matures.”
Richard Pugh, investor at BGF, commented: “The offshore wind sector globally is critical to decarbonizing energy and is forecast to grow ten-fold over the next 15 years. Scotland was an early mover in the sector and has supported world-leading experience in delivering and servicing these operations efficiently. Operators are pushing for specialist technology that can step-up to fulfil this growing demand efficiently and with the lowest possible carbon footprint. This aligns exactly with Sulmara, whose growth in the last three to four years is evidence of both the quality of their operations and the ability of Kevin and his team to build a truly global business.”
