French startup Cosma raises €2.5 million for underwater imaging technology for marine biodiversity

Nice-based Cosma, a DeepTech company specialising in mapping deep-sea ecosystems using autonomous vehicles, has announced a €2.5 million funding round to industrialise its drone fleet.

The round was led by WIND and Ternel, with backing from 50 Partners, Caisse d’Épargne Côte d’Azur, and IFREMER – the scientific institution that originally launched the project. The raise is complemented by significant non-dilutive public funding, including France 2030, which could potentially double the total amount secured.

“Cosma was born from the conviction that biological data should be just as accessible and reliable as physical measurements in marine projects. Our technology enables large-scale operations while placing biodiversity at the heart of decision-making,” said Frédéric Mittaine, CEO of Cosma.

Founded in 2022, Cosma is industrialising the inventory and monitoring of benthic ecosystems; striving to contribute to the preservation of ocean biodiversity. They deploy autonomous underwater robots that collect up to 100,000 images per hectare of seabed, paired with a 3D photogrammetry system and algorithms capable of recognising habitats and species.

Their cloud-native processing platform & AI toolbox generate photographic seabed models and locate protected species.

The resulting digital twin reportedly provides repeatable, reliable, and easy-to-interpret data – especially on benthic ecosystems.

“To date, only 25% of the ocean floor has been mapped with high precision (less than 100 m x 100 m), and less than 1% of marine species are known. The need for knowledge is immense, and COSMA opens up new perspectives to better observe, understand, and protect our ocean,” said Romain Charraudeau, Director of Technology Transfer at IFREMER.

Their results are useful for conducting scientific studies and also serve to help avoid sensitive species during offshore construction, ensure the integrity of critical underwater infrastructure, and better understand the role of seagrass meadows in coastal erosion.

“WIND was convinced by Cosma’s groundbreaking technology, its potential to become the ‘Google Maps’ of the seafloor, and its ability to protect both marine ecosystems and critical infrastructure,” added Olivier Mougenot, General Partner at WIND.

The company’s early clients already include RWE (a leader in renewable energy), EGIS (a leading engineering firm), the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and the French Navy (Marine Nationale).

“Cosma embodies exactly the kind of innovation we want to support: an exceptional team, a transformational project for the ocean, and a clear vision for impact. We’re proud to co-lead this round alongside WIND,” said Timothée Poulain, Partner at Ternel.

Cosma has benefited from strong scientific and technical support from IFREMER since its inception and is still hosted today within the institute’s underwater systems unit in La Seyne-sur-Mer.

This new funding will allow Cosma to:

• Industrialise its drone fleet to operate in deep-sea environments.
• Strengthen its software platform and AI-powered analysis tools needed to process
  large-scale datasets.
• Structure its operations to serve both public and private clients at a European level.

Cosma believes that their positioning as a provider of high-resolution, surface-level seafloor data responds to a growing demand from public and industrial players for reliable measurement technologies – in a context where security and biodiversity are becoming new standards in major maritime infrastructure projects.

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