“That's what we do with carbon dioxide right now. We emit it, we leave it in the atmosphere, and nobody's paying to clean that up. It's just like everybody's trash is going up into the air. So a compliance market for carbon is really just the same as your waste management coming and picking up your garbage at the end of your road.”

I think that we're in a phase which is sort of that place between research first of a kind and like scaling up, right? So we always have to balance between what we do in the ocean being safe, well monitored, understand exactly what we're doing before we take that next scale step forward. And so to get to where we are today, which I think is a pretty big success to get to 8,000 tons, this is actually a really big deal, even though it seems small in the context of the gigaton scale. It's about 1,100 times increase over our very first dosing. And we're continuing to sort of turn that dial in terms of almost 10x per year in terms of the scale up. But we're definitely not doing it alone. And I would say that the organizations that are around us range from academic institutions, Dalhousie University has been a huge collaborator in terms of their independent research that happens around our plant. Phil and traffic organizations like Carbon to Sea is an organization that is accelerating the field and helping to ensure that this becomes successful. A variety of funders are off-takers and then our local community as well, working with the Indigenous groups and the local community. One of the things I'm actually really proud of that I think is going to be a really key part of scaling this up is that we've established what's called a two-eyed scene committee with the Mikmah in Nova Scotia. And a two-eyed scene committee is essentially the ability for us to bring Indigenous knowledge systems together with sort of colonial science in order to come up with a better solution overall, something that will be more in tune with the environment, in tune with local communities and the sort of the more traditional caretakers of the land. And I think that those kinds of things are really critical to scale this type of approach, right? We need not only to understand the science, we need to understand the ecotoxicology or the ecological benefits, right? Showing positive impacts on shellfish growth, for example, has been one big thing a lot of people are getting excited about with the work that we do, showing the positive impact on the climate system and all those things. But it's also we have to bring people in, and we have to have a large sort of community around the world that says, hey, we want this solution and we know we need it and we want to sort of build it together in a way that's really productive. So that's what we're seeing more and more is people coming in under the tent and saying, hey, this is something that we have to explore. Some people will come in and say, we want to be part of this just because we want to make sure that it's done well and it's done right. Others because they think it's a solution that we truly need. But that community really is forming around this. And I think that's how we're going to get to scale ultimately.

Well, I just want to clarify. I didn't necessarily object to your moving at a reasonable pace as opposed to the move fast and break things philosophy of Silicon Valley, which, you know, God knows what we'd end up with if people of that ilk would be running something like this. They might just do something super crazy and like, oh, sorry, didn't work. We ruined the ocean. Though it kind of seems like, well, you've now done the due diligence, you've done the science. It's kind of basic science that isn't something extraordinarily new in the respect that, you know, they've been doing water treatment, as you said, for at least 100, 150 years. So this isn't like as extreme. You know, I guess it's kind of balanced between, hey, this notion that we're in an emergency. This is an emergency. We kind of have to move fast and we don't have time to go at a methodical pace in part because of all of our past actions that have set up this horrendous situation. We're now under the gun. And that's kind of my concern as the listener is like, we got to move. And, you know, and I appreciate the amazing amount of movement that you guys have done. And I'm saying, you know, move faster from my armchair in Venice, get a move on this. Come on.

So in terms of your company, are you looking at getting on investors or how is this working?

Yeah, so we're venture-backed right now. We're definitely looking for additional investors right now. And we're just opening up a funding round right now to continue the work that we're doing and progress the mission. We're also working with more philanthropic style funders who are helping us with R D and research that really supports the entire field. So those are two areas that we're focused on right now for sure.

How much are you guys looking to raise with your funding round?