Dive into the matches made by TOOL and our customer testimonials. Check out the list below, and sign up to have your business thrive with us.

Within the world of TOOL, we help map actors within a range of fields, where ocean industries & zero emission solutions / renewable energy drive initiatives towards a zero emission, zero waste future.

The mapped actors are diverse, including accelorators, investors, insitutes, NGOs, students, to name a few. Each actor has different needs and via our platform, they can easliy find and connect with each other. Now we´re presenting a broad range of our achievements in supporting our customers to succeed.

Matched by TOOL

Competitions/Accelerator Programs

• 'Clean Ports, Clean Oceans' Startup Competition by Grieg & WWF : TOOL Spawn used as platform & facilitator alongside a local incubator, to run competion and scout global candidates for circular/plastic startups. All candidates onboarded & evaluated from Spawn. Regular events connecting project owner with candidates run on TOOL Aquarium. Half the initial finalists came through TOOL, and 3 made the final selection.

• Biofouling Innovation Challenge Startup & Innovators competition by World Ocean Council, as part of their project deliverables towards 5 year Glofouling Partnership Program by IMO, UNDP & partners. TOOL signed in as coordinating partner & platform for competition. Successfully recruited candidates, jury, industry partners & investors. TOOL facilitate promotion, project management, competition materials & documents, and mapping of biofouling ecosystem players globally. All nominations/applications handled A-Z for candidates and jury towards investor pitch fest October 2022. Ongoing project.

• Fauna Accelerator. TOOL asked to scout scaleups with circular business models, with short deadline. In the program of 8 companies, 3 were from TOOL´s target list.

• Ocean Startup Project, by Canada Ocean Super Cluster. Canada´s global initiative to develop its position as globally leading hub for ocean tech startups are working with TOOL to scout and expand the pipeline of both startups to compete for Ocean Startup Prize and their accelerator, and to connect these and the cluster towards European industry actors. 4 applicants for last program through TOOL, as first pilot.

Talents/Expertise x company

• Virtual Summer Internship program by AltaSea  at the Port of L.A. American program to connect students from underpriviliged backgrounds to practical summer internships in the ocean industries. TOOL helped match with 4 international companies outside of the US, across Norway and India.

• Internship program & student thesis, for  the Norwegian Association for Environmental Boats . TOOL helped scout & identify candidates from the TOOL Talent pool of active applicants

• Pilot project to explore how to digitize the matchmaking and interaction across students and innovative companies for bachelor thesis topics. Curated and scoped out complementary focus areas across Shipping & Logistics students at the University of South East Norway, finding companies within key focus areas of the degree´s curriculum. Student-innovator match found with TECO2030, HeidelbergCement Northern Europe, NCE Maritime CleanTech, Wallenius Marine and Prototech. Concept verified and developed as a support concept for industry.

Innovation partners

• Battery company Beyonder & bio company Tschudi both were in need of innovation partners. Through TOOL, they were connected, resulting in a joint research project to deliver sawdust from Tschudi to produce active carbon replacing rare metals for Beyonder´s batteries. The project is in its 2nd phase of Norwegian Research Council also collaborating with NTNU to scale up their eco-friendly and high performance batteries for industrial use.

• Nordic leading AFRY seeking innovation partners & startups for collab project on green port city case - and actively generally seeking complementary innovators & partners for portside urban development projects in various cities. Matched with numerous TOOL partners, including Tschudi, Kuniko and Greenstat.

• Kruser Green boat pool seeking ports & partners to scale/roll out their concept. Matched with the city of Bergen, and pilot quay partner GreenBoats/Aker Brygge Marina.

• French Green Squadron alliance seeking global partners for zero emission transportation in ports. Matched with FreiXchange and Greek startup cluster

• Bellona & Jotun were seeking startups for a environmental hull cleaning initiative. Matched with EcoSubsea

Growth Resources

• Nordic Innovators and a number of TOOL Companies seeking funding, has been matched, securing innovation grant application support at favourable conditions with special services for the TOOL community innovators.

Testimonials

Global Female Candidate Pool: 

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Anette Trettebergstuen

Norwegian minister of culture and equality

 Women should be breaking all kinds of glass ceilings by now. But in practice it is bearly an audible cracking sound. And the pace we are moving in isn’t really taking anyones breath away. 

'With the global female pool we go from talk to action. No male business owners can ever say; 'we don’t find these women'. It will be an important tool for reaching our equality goals. And this will make my job much easier!'

Jannicke D Steen

VP People and Performance at Grieg Maritime Group

Our industries are facing huge challenges. There is a major need for up-skilling and re-skilling our workforce. Trough this initiative from TOOL we can help our employees develop through external networks and roles, and also bring back strategic competence to our organization from outside

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Katharina Stanzel 

MD Intertanko

As a species, we are hardwired to engage and learn from each other. What the Tool candidate pool will help us do, is increase that diversity on boards and leadership teams globally, matching the best talent, skills and experience, to companies with the vision to be the best they can be, regardless of gender.​​

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Ida C Brun 

Maersk Growth

​There is a need to create better networks to connect female talent and entrepreneurs to the exciting opportunities that are out there, and this initiative supported just that. It gives a platform to highlight the female potential, support collaboration and partnerships and enable recruitment.' 

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Aino Olaisen

Chair Nova Sea

​We need to empower women from the inside. This initiative will inspire more women to use their passion and their energy in our industry.  

Elisabeth Grieg, Co-Owner at Grieg Group

“Congratulations with the launch today. It is remarkable how far you have come in such a short time. To be part of the TOOL advisory board is a great honour to me and I am looking forward towards where we are heading”

Elisabeth presented Grieg and WWF's 'Clean Ports, Clean Oceans'-project with the aim of reducing marine plastic in The Phillipines' ports by 50%. The partners are using TOOL Spawn to recruit innovators with ready-to-scale solutions to reduce marine plastic.

Paul Holthus, CEO of World Ocean Council (WOC)

'The TOOL platform really creates a great way to operationalise our work with the innovation network we are building as part of our investment platform. We are very happy to be one of TOOL's early strategic partners.”

Paul Holthius, President of World Ocean Council (WOC), presented how TOOL's strategic partner (WOC), the global blue economy business and investment organisation, is using TOOL Spawn to operationalise the interaction between innovators, accelerators, innovators, challenge competitions and startup hubs through their Global Blue Economy Innovation Initiatives Network.

Lars Erik Marcussen, HeidelbergCement North Europe

“We need contacts and we need a place to meet people. Very shortly put, we need a TOOL. We need a TOOL to help us realize our ambitions of carbon neutrality by 2030 and zero emission transport by 2035. And for this we need to act fast. We need someone to help us connect with people who have this as their passion and as their key competence.”

Lars Erik from HeidelbergCement presented their opportunity on TOOL Spawn - seeking zero emission innovators who can help them realize their dream of transporting materials with zero emissions. HeidelbergCement is a leading cargo owner working towards launching the world’s first hydrogen-powered vessel by the end of 2023.

Kristin Skofteland, Beyonder

“Working as innovators in clean energy can sometimes feel a bit like 'Nemo'. We are moving around in this big, big, sea and we don’t always know what to do... It’s really good to have a network with TOOL where we can find companies with the same vision as us, connect with others and set up projects together.”

Kristin presented Beyonder and NTNU's open PhD position in the area of sustainable carbon-based supercapacitors, now available as an opportunity on TOOL Spawn. The position comes as a result of receiving funding from the Norwegian Research Council for their collaboration with NTNU and Tschudi Bio Company to scale up their eco-friendly and high performance batteries for industrial use using saw dust. Beyonder was matched with Tschudi Bio Company through TOOL and we congratulate them with getting to the next stage now with this extra funding and PhD position.

Tor Østervold, CEO of ECOsubsea

“The pieces to solve the greatest challenge the planet has ever had, they are there. But what we need is a platform where we can meet, where needs can be shown, and where large and smaller players can collaborate. TOOL is an important piece in the puzzle of connecting change-makers together.”

TOOL will be supporting ECOsubsea in their exciting growth and expansion phase.

Robert Rubinstein, Chairman & Founder ('Sustainable Investment Sherpa'), TBLI Group

“We need far fewer ribbon cutters, and more people who will do the work and dig the hole, like Birgit (TOOL Founder and CEO)”

Register an account to our matchmaking platform TOOL Spawn to read more about Rubert and connect with him.

Ted Janulis, Founder and Principal at Investable Oceans

“Birgit I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to be included in this community. What you are building with your team is just truly exceptional and so needed. Kudos for this launch.”

Ted talked about how Investable Oceans is seeking companies and investors for their blue economy investment platform.

Register an account to our matchmaking platform TOOL Spawn, read more about Investable Oceans and connect with them.

Nermina Ljevakovic, Chief Investment Officer at TechBridge Invest

“Congratulations with the launch of spawn, a fantastic TOOL. I am not big on Tinder but I will definitely be big on spawn! I’ve already seen the power of the tool and thank you for connecting us with amazing industry partners. It’s just great to see how efficiently you can meet other like minded working towards the same goal.'

Register an account to our matchmaking platform TOOL Spawn, read more about TechBridge Invest and connect with them.

Manuel Bustelo, Sustainability Ambassador at DAN Europe

Partner of TOOL for finding & connecting with European innovators and frontrunners as part of a 5 month pan-European EV-tour focusing on promoting and inspiring the world´s biggest diving association to mobilize for sustainable choices.

'To all of the scuba divers out there who at the same time run businesses, here is a great TOOL. They give opportunities to connect with other companies all over the world. They are environmentally minded, conscious minded, and can provide opportunities for different industries. Whether you are in the scuba diving industry or any other, to accelerate the process of becoming more sustainable.'

Donald Grant, Executive Director, Ocean Startup Project (Canada Ocean Super Cluster):

'I loved the recent event. I was so inspired. (...) We started talking it through and you are our ideal collaborator.'

Pilot & MVP Stage: 

Matt Duke CEO, Grieg Star Shipping

“Nice matchmaking tool! This will be really useful - especially to connect with startups looking to solve some of the industry challenges”

Gaute Juliussen CEO, Toraphene

“Love this «Tinder» app! Brilliant that it ́s so easy to learn, use and understand. Totally self-explanatory. Great that you can search on competence and needs!!”

Astrid Molstad Founder, Molnex Energy

“This is clean cut, straight to the point navigation, and not least a startup/ investor/ customer-match based on values and the desire to empower the innovators, not primary focus of just making money. Exactly what I think is needed to grow solid and sustainable companies. Can ́t wait to use it!”

Jan Peder Myklebost Head of Shipping and Inbound Logistics, Norsk Hydro

“Very intuitive, easy to navigate. Efficient and concise. Looks sophisticated and professional. Would it be possible to give each startup/ initiative a 1 minute elevator pitch to increase their exposure? '