Key facts
- Drogue told TechCrunch it raised $20 million from investors including XYZ Venture Capital, Toyota Ventures and Slow Ventures.
- Drogue designed a multi-megawatt prototype for an ocean-going ship, targeted for early 2028.
- The American Bureau of Shipping gave Drogue approval in principle, a preliminary sign-off.
- Drogue is buying its first ship to build an open-ocean prototype, CEO Sam Sipe said.
Drogue, a startup founded six months before November 13, 2026 in Washington, DC, told TechCrunch it has raised $20 million to build a system that harvests heat from the ocean to power data centers on board floating vessels. Investors include XYZ Venture Capital, Toyota Ventures, Tamarack Global, Dream, FDVC, Garuda Ventures, Flexcap, Boost VC and Slow Ventures.
Co-founder and CEO Sam Sipe said the first prototype should be at sea and processing data in less than two years. Drogue has designed a multi-megawatt prototype to be installed on a traditional ocean-going ship and sent out in early 2028. Future versions would be built on floating structures resembling offshore oil platforms.
The system uses ocean thermal energy conversion, or OTEC, a technology first developed in the 1950s. It draws in warm surface water to cool the data centers, then sends the warmed water to boil ammonia, which turns to gas at -28 °F. The gas passes through a turbine to generate electricity, then through a condenser cooled by water drawn from 1,000 meters deep. The warmed water is pumped back down to that depth, and the ammonia returns to the start of a sealed loop.
Sipe said the basic idea was tested in the 1980s but set aside, and that manufacturing techniques for pipes and heat exchangers have changed since. He said he interviewed people who worked on those early efforts, who told him the technology works and that the obstacle was raising enough capital to build at sufficient scale.
Drogue has approval in principle, a preliminary sign-off, from the American Bureau of Shipping, which sets and checks safety standards for ships. The company is in the process of buying its first ship to start building a prototype ready for the open ocean. Sipe said each vessel would stay at sea for about a decade.