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BGF announces a £15 million (~$18.9 million) investment in Sulmara, an independent provider of innovative survey and inspection services to the offshore wind and energy markets.
The Glasgow-headquartered business was founded in 2019 and has grown rapidly to more than £55.8 million (~$70 million) annual revenue, delivering a compound annual growth rate of 61% over the last four years. It has built a global footprint, with offices in Glasgow, Aberdeen, Norwich, Houston, Singapore and Taipei.
Sulmara’s rapid growth and success to date has come from using expertise and technology to provide more efficient survey services with a lower carbon footprint to a wide range of global clients. The business was the first services company in the offshore wind sector to be a signatory to the Climate Pledge. It has also recently achieved independently verified Carbon Neutrality status against the BSI PAS 2060:2014 standard.
BGF’s investment will support Sulmara’s continued growth trajectory, including further investment in new technologies, such as uncrewed surface vessels (USVs), autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), next-generation geophysical sensors, and advanced data products. The ability to use these advanced systems both alongside and with traditional survey vessels supports improved high-quality data turnaround time, while significantly reducing the environmental impact of offshore projects.
Sulmara is already delivering benefits for major customers around the world, including Orsted, Chevron and Seaway7, using remote and innovative systems. And BGF’s investment will enable further complex and low carbon data collection in environments that pose a huge challenge to conventional methodologies.
Kevin McBarron, Founder and CEO of Sulmara, said: “BGF’s investment comes at an important moment for the company, as we look to build on the success of our technology and innovation efforts to date, and to accelerate their introduction to our service offerings.
“This significant investment of growth capital is a vote of confidence in our strategy from an established investment partner in BGF. The international growth and breadth of services now delivered demonstrates that our approach is also resonating with our clients and supports their need to reduce Scope 3 emissions, as the path to NetZero matures.
“We now look forward to investing further in the technology that will allow us to deliver world-class services to support the entire offshore energy sector at a lower carbon cost.”
As part of BGF’s investment, Davis Larssen and BGF investor Richard Pugh will join the board as Non-Executive Directors. Both Larssen and Pugh bring many years’ experience leading and investing in energy services and technology businesses.
Richard Pugh, Investor at BGF, commented: “Offshore renewables and their adjacent technologies have an increasingly important role in decarbonising our energy, and are an area Scotland has world-leading expertise. Sulmara’s growth in the last three to four years is evidence of the quality of their operations, as well as the ability of Kevin and his team to deliver for clients, while also building a truly global business. Working closely with Kevin, Davis and the rest of the management team, we look forward to supporting the next stage in Sulmara’s exciting growth journey.”
