Panthalassa Raises $140 Million to Deploy Wave-Powered Floating Data Centers

Panthalassa raised $140 million in a Series B round in May 2026 to fund commercial deployment of floating data center nodes that generate electricity from ocean waves. The Portland, Oregon startup, cofounded in 2016 by Garth Sheldon-Coulson and Brian Moffat, began testing its Ocean-2 prototype off the coast of Washington state in 2025.

The 70-meter steel tower with a bulbous head above the waterline can produce up to 1 megawatt of continuous power.

Garth Sheldon-Coulson, who holds a master’s degree from MIT and a law degree from Harvard, said the company will place hundreds to thousands of free-floating buoys in the seas between the South Pole, South America, and Africa. The nodes are self-propelled, reposition autonomously, and have no seafloor connection. Panthalassa plans to begin commercial operations in 2027.

Sheldon-Coulson stated the electricity cost will be approximately 2 cents per kilowatt-hour with over 90 percent capacity factor. The units will operate in waters averaging 10 degrees Celsius. The nodes are built with thick steel and zinc or aluminum coatings designed to last at least 15 years.

Compute payloads will be swapped approximately every five years. In the early 2030s the company intends to begin producing carbon-free hydrogen or ammonia. Series B investors include Peter Thiel, John Doerr, TIME Ventures led by Marc Benioff, SciFi Ventures led by Max Levchin, and Gigascale Capital led by Mike Schroepfer, former Meta CTO who oversaw construction of its data centers.

Chief Engineer Daniel Place previously worked at SpaceX. Other engineering staff came from Google, Blue Origin, Apple, Boeing, Amazon, and Tesla. SpaceX plans to begin launching orbital data centers in 2028, according to its IPO filing, which notes significant technical complexity and unproven technologies.