Victoria’s Sailbotix Joins Amplify to Move from Innovation to Real-World Impact

The Ocean Startup Project this week unveiled the second round of companies selected for Amplify.

Amplify is Ocean Startup Project’s collaborative commercialization program for high-potential Canadian ocean technology ventures.

The program is designed to close the gap between innovation and commercialization by helping startups validate their solutions with customers and progress toward revenue and scale.

“Amplify is built for this pivotal stage,” explains Paula Mendonça, Executive Director of the Ocean Startup Project, “when breakthrough ocean technologies need more than capital alone.”

Through Amplify, companies can receive up to $25,000 in funds to support pilot projects, customer demonstrations, and early deployments.

“By pairing targeted funding with a deeply connected national ecosystem, we help founders move from pilots to procurement, from validation to revenue, and from innovation to real-world impact,” said Mendonça.

The latest round saw funding for three ocean startups, including one based in British Columbia.

Operating at the intersection of the Internet of things and the sea, Victoria-based Sailbotix is developing compact, long-duration autonomous vessels that make offshore and nearshore ocean data collection more accessible and scalable.

Achieving surveillance and data on the oceans is “incredibly expensive,” according to Sailbotix, whose goal is “to create the world’s most affordable ocean-capable USVs.”

“What once required crewed ships costing tens of thousands per day can now be achieved by small, resilient robotic platforms working continuously across the world’s oceans,” Sailbotix claims.

“We see extraordinary ideas coming out of Canadian labs and founder teams, and what changes the game is getting those ideas into the hands of customers, into ports, vessels and waterways, and into the real operating conditions where adoption begins,” stated Mendonça.

Through Amplify, Sailbotix will work with Ocean Startup Project’s network of delivery partners to define and achieve key commercialization milestones, including pilot execution, customer validation, and deployment readiness.

With this second round of Amplify, the Ocean Startup Project and its partners have now distributed a total of $100,000, supporting six Canadian ocean startups.

Last year, Sailbotix was a finalist in the 2025 Pitchfest hosted by COAST.