Startup 4 Climate
A climate-innovation competition won in 2023 — one of the five NoviOcean entered, and one of the five it won.
Company
Recognition, and the public support behind it.
What NoviOcean has won, who has funded the work — and, just as important, what that recognition does and does not prove.
Awards
Five competition wins from five entries, plus one EU award.
Every competition NoviOcean has entered, it has won. The European Commission’s Seal of Excellence sits alongside those wins as a quality award in a non-competition category — it is not one of the five. management estimate
Startup 4 ClimateWinner 2023
GuldstänkInnovator of the Year
Shenzhen IEICWinner, 2024 Swedish Division
Stena Line Propeller Prize2021
Mission Innovation ChampionSweden
EU Seal of ExcellenceQuality award — non-competition category
Guldstänk — Innovator of the Year
Innovator of the Year. The same recognition appears in founder Jan Skjoldhammer’s own record as an inventor, alongside Mission Innovation Champion.
Shenzhen IEIC
The China Shenzhen Innovation and Entrepreneurship International Competition. NoviOcean won its 2024 Swedish Division, and Shenzhen IEIC is also named among the programme’s supporters.
Stena Line Propeller Prize
Awarded in 2021, the earliest of the competition wins listed here, and the first outside recognition of the hybrid ocean-energy concept.
Mission Innovation Champion
Sweden’s Mission Innovation Champion, awarded to founder and inventor Jan Skjoldhammer in 2020 under the international Mission Innovation initiative.
EU Seal of Excellence
A European Commission quality award, given to proposals assessed as excellent. It is a mark of quality, not a competition result, and NoviOcean does not count it among the five wins.
Public support and funding
Public innovation agencies have backed this work from concept to demonstrator.
Grants are awarded after formal technical and financial review, which makes them a different kind of signal from a competition win: an agency has examined the programme and chosen to fund the next step.
- Approximately €2.9 million of public funding secured between 2016 and 2025, from EU CINEA-LIFE, the Swedish Energy Agency, Vinnova and others. measured
- Approximately €0.7 million of founder capital, carried in from an earlier venture. measured
- That support funded ten years of development, testing and offshore validation — concept work, tank testing, power-take-off rigs and the offshore prototypes. The evidence it produced is set out on the Validation page →
- Current funding requirements, phase budgets and the route to commercial scale are on Investor Relations →
Supported by
EIT InnoEnergy
Programme support also comes from Shenzhen IEIC and from MIR Green Energy, whose role in pilot development is described on Investor Relations →
Scope
What this recognition is — and what it is not.
Awards and grants say that informed outsiders have looked at NoviOcean and backed it. They do not say that the platform has been technically proven. Those are two different bodies of evidence, and this page only carries the first.
What it is
- External assessment of the concept, the team and the business case
- Public funding awarded after formal technical and financial review
- Visible institutional support in Sweden and across the European Union
- A reason to look at the technical evidence, not a substitute for it
What it is not
- Technical validation of the platform — that evidence sits on Validation
- Certification of production, capacity factor or cost of energy
- An indication that a full-scale unit is operating offshore; the full-scale Medi Wave pilot is the next major phase
- A competition win, in the case of the EU Seal of Excellence — it is a quality award in a non-competition category
Market interest
Where the interest is coming from.
Six groups have engaged with NoviOcean about hybrid offshore energy. Interest is not a commitment — where a discussion has advanced into an agreement, it is described on Investor Relations. management estimate
Utilities
Grid-scale generation and hybrid offshore projects.
Island communities
High electricity costs, constrained grids and limited land.
Ports and harbors
Local generation next to heavy, continuous demand.
Offshore wind
Co-location and shared offshore infrastructure.
Research institutions
Hybrid ocean-energy modelling, testing and measurement.
Governments
Energy security, local industrial value and emissions targets.
Recognition is the start of the conversation.
The awards and the public funding explain why NoviOcean is taken seriously. What happens at your site, on your load profile, is a discussion — and it starts with a short introductory meeting.