November 11, 2024 — Kevin Rosa was researching models to simulate the ocean as part of his PhD program at the University of Rhode Island when a professional sailing team reached out to him. The sailors were looking for information that could give them a better sense of how ocean currents were moving to help them race faster. Their inquiry made him think there could be a commercial opportunity to compute such data for a variety of clients.
“This could be valuable for other scientists. This could be valuable for the [Environmental Protection Agency], the Navy, sailing teams, aquaculture, fisheries, search and rescue. It seemed like the applications were sort of endless,” he said.
Rosa founded Current Lab soon after. In 2022, he received $50,000 seed funding from SeaAhead and the New England Aquarium’s BlueSwell incubator program for early startups.