Who we are, what we do & how we can help save the planet

Meet PlanBlue

Mobilising the Seafloor

The Hidden Key to Tackle Our Global Challenges

Climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, and starvation are the crises of our time. Global temperatures are rising. Weather events are getting more severe. Ecosystems are falling apart. The human population is growing. The time to act is now — we've got less than ten years left to make meaningful changes. The clock is ticking.
Few people realise this, but our greatest hope lies in the ocean, especially the seafloor. Covering 71% of the planet, the seafloor holds untapped potential in the fight against climate change and biodiversity loss. Take seagrass meadows, for example: these amazing underwater ecosystems can capture atmospheric CO2 up to 35 times more efficient than forests on land.

The challenge?

The seafloor remains largely unexplored and therefore untapped. Less than 1% has been mapped in detail (i.e. habitats). We know more about the surfaces of Mars and Venus than we do about our own planet’s. Why? Because water gets in the way. To effectively tackle climate change and biodiversity loss we need high-resolution data from the seafloor.
But there is more, it’s also about food (in)security. The ocean already feeds 3 billion people and supports the livelihoods of 12% of the world’s population. As our dependence on marine resources grows, so does the urgency to act. We need detailed seafloor data to make sure that we can restore, protect and sustain our natural resources. That’s where we at PlanBlue come in. We make the seafloor visible and, by this, show the ocean’s true state, as the seafloor reflects the average conditions of its surrounding marine environment. By combining hyperspectral and RGB imaging with geo-referencing and advanced Artificial Intelligence, we deliver the most sophisticated seafloor intelligence available today. Our technology creates highly detailed, data-rich maps that visualize seafloor health, biodiversity, pollution levels, carbon capture potential, and much more.

What drives us

PlanBlue’s mission is to mobilise and monetise the seafloor, by literally putting it on the map.

Our data is crucial for building a sustainable future for our ocean and planet, whether it’s guiding marine infrastructure restoring ecosystems, protecting coastlines, or supporting the billions of people who depend on these vital resources. Dive in and discover how our passionate team of ocean advocates, business geeks and tech nerds are unlocking the seafloor to help save our planet.

Who We Are & Why We Started PlanBlue

We’re Joost, Hannah, Raja, and Guy, the co-founders of PlanBlue. We’re based in Bremen, Germany, and started the company back in 2017.
Joining forces was a combination of chance, and our complementary backgrounds. We were all motivated to use our knowledge to solve real-world problems. We all wanted to make an actual difference. And we all wanted to improve the environment.
Before PlanBlue, Joost was working as a marine biologist. He’d done his PhD and postdoc on the effects of climate change and pollution on the seafloor. He was also an active diver and dive instructor, and spent a lot of time looking at our fascinating underwater world. He was becoming increasingly disturbed by what he saw, and realised how few people knew how bad it was.
“One of my students and I dived a coral reef together. It was her first time, and she thought it was amazing. But with my experience, I saw it was completely degraded, with only a few percent of coral alive. Everything that was colourful was actually algal and bacterial slime, which is not what you want at all. This experience highlighted how differently we saw the same underwater scene. That moment always stuck with me.” — Joost
Hannah was a marine scientist, researching human impact on the ocean, at top institutes around the world. In her work she’d experienced the effects of pollution, climate change, and biodiversity loss in the oceans first-hand. She saw one beautiful coral reef crumble away in three years. Combined with the lack of action she was seeing, Hannah felt she had to do something with her knowledge. She loved being a scientist, but she wanted to have a bigger impact, so she had her first idea for a startup in 2013.
“Witnessing the destruction firsthand was something I couldn’t ignore. I’ve always believed that true, lasting impact can only be achieved when commercial solutions are aligned with tackling global challenges. We need to build on the structures that exist — but build something better, something bigger, with real and meaningful impact" — Hannah
Joost and Hannah's passion for and knowledge of ocean conservation served as our catalyst. After a talk Joost gave at the Max Planck Institute, they started collaborating on how to visualise the seafloor in an easy-to-understand way. But some key parts of our team were still missing.
Raja came to Germany to do his Masters, and had been working at Max Planck since 2015. His years of research and experience included working with underwater camera systems.
“My background is in electronics and communication systems. I was very much into building and programming hardware. I've always been interested in the application of technology, and in doing that very well." — Raja
Raja had the exact hardware expertise we needed, and was happy to join and use his tech to solve real-world problems. Guy was working as a control engineer on weather satellites. He liked the space industry, but found it too slow moving.
“I wanted to build things. Complex systems that could have a big impact." — Guy
Guy was excited about doing field work in the ocean, and to work on something to help the environment. After he joined, we secured our first public grant, officially launching PlanBlue. We’re a very diverse team, each bringing unique backgrounds, perspectives, and personalities to the table. But our complementary scientific, technical and business backgrounds and skills are all essential to our mission.
“We work on the seafloor, underwater. Nobody lives there, so very few truly understand it. But, when people can see something, they are far more likely to grasp its importance.
That’s why we focused on visualisation. People understand maps and images, they make the invisible visible. So we built our company around this idea. At PlanBlue, we use underwater remote sensing to reveal a world that’s largely unknown, yet absolutely critical to solving some of the biggest challenges of our time, like climate change.” — Joost

Our Mission

We want to create an impact on a scale which is pretty crazy to imagine. It’s so much bigger than us. We find that powerful, and it’s what drives us every day.

At PlanBlue, our mission is to mobilize and monetize the seafloor to tackle the pressing global challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss, and food insecurity. We are committed to doing so ethically and see it as our moral obligation to provide the best seafloor data to make the best decisions for our oceans, both from an environmental and economical perspective.
Through this approach, we strive for long-term impact and a prosperous sustainable blue economy. We actively participate in global dialogue, share our latest knowledge, and help shape responsible best practices in ocean technology, restoration and conversation efforts. We believe tackling our global challenges involves including everyone; that’s why we do not exclude talking to anyone, even those responsible for large-scale marine degradation.
Our ethical standards are led by PlanBlue’s founders, and are upheld in every project we take on, ensuring our actions remain aligned with PlanBlue’s core values. We strive to be a force for systemic, positive change in ocean health, planetary resilience and a thriving blue economy for all.
Signed, the founders of PlanBlue

Our Core Values

We are ocean advocates

We're united by our passion for ocean conservation. We see it as our responsibility to spread the word about the state of our oceans, to inspire, and to enable sustainable action with our data.

We do what's right

We believe in fairness, honesty and diversity, including them in everything we do. When making decisions, we always aim to do what's right for the planet, the company, and the team.

We believe in collective genius

The challenges we work on can only be solved through collaboration and combining knowhow. We actively engage with all our stakeholders: local communities, customers, partners and investors.

We dive right in

We’re pioneers in our field and dare to dream big. We’re thinkers and doers, committed to creating real change. We embrace new things to create the most advanced tech out there.

Join Our Mission

We're always looking for passionate, talented people to help drive our mission forward, and there’s never been a more exciting time to join us. Do you want to make a real impact? Be part of something that really matters?
Join us in mobilising the seafloor to help save our planet.

This is our team

Business

CSO & Co-Founder

Hannah Brocke

CEO & Co-Founder

Joost den Haan

CTO & Co-Founder

Guy Rigot

Innovation Specialist & Co-Founder

Raja Kandukuri

Project Director

Naomi Esken

Product Owner (Geospatial)

Leonardo Tamborrino

Head of Sales

Walter Consul

Head of Brand & User Experience

Christoph Schroeder

Senior Visual Designer

Pascal Seul

Office Manager

Rosanna Schöneich-Argent

Project Director

Svenja Diester

HR Operations Specialist

Jannet Allani

FieldTools Squad

Head of Engineering

Mike Lee

Senior Development Engineer

Nils Öhlmann

Development Engineer

Ibad Rather

Mechanical Design Engineer

Saurabh Verma

Senior Software Engineer

Helge Staedtler

DataScience Squad

Data Scientist

Anna-Lea Lesage

Software Architect

Marten Ellssel

Senior Software Developer

Julius Hetzel

Marine Scientist

Andreas Türke

Data Scientist

Moritz Baumann

Senior Data Scientist

Waleed Khan

Our supporters

planblue GmbH
Fully-automated seafloor intelligence to drive your nature-positive operations.
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