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V O L . X X I X N O. V § 2 M A R C H 6 , 2 0 2 3 14 S TA R T U P S F O C U S Financing Early financing came from compet- itively awarded grants from the U.S. Department of Energy and other entities and seed loans from the Maine Technology Institute's Accel- erated Commercialization Fund. Family and friends provided early investment. In 2008, ORPC com- pleted its first round of $5.5 million in angel funding, hired its first four employees and completed a year of successful demonstrations. Day-to-day work involved proto- type engineering, design and devel- opment; community engagement in Eastport and Alaska's Cook Inlet region; outreach to vendors and man- ufacturers; seeking further invest- ment, grant writing, learning the regulator y process, seeking per- mits and conducting environmen- tal monitoring. Scaling up Successful demonstrations yielded more private investment and pub- lic sector research and development funding, resulting in more hires and projects and accelerated technology advancement. "As we advanced our abilities in Maine, our work attracted the atten- tion of remote communities around the world struggling with long-term environmental and economic sustain- ability," says Davies. In Igiugig, when completed, two RivGen devices will pair with a smart microgrid controller and battery from Schneider Electric to enable the com- munity to operate without diesel gen- erators most of the time. is quarter, ORPC will deploy in Millinocket a Modular RivGen Power System, designed for major rivers and smaller waterways. Today, ORPC has offices in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Chile and a staff of 38, including 29 in Maine at its Portland headquarters, Bruns- wick engineering lab and Eastport test center. More positions will be added this year. Overall, it's spent over $50 million statewide. Last year, it raised a $25 million pri- vate investment round led by Canadian Shield Capital and Hatch. e near- term focus is to get additional devices in the water to demonstrate effectiveness. For this year, goals include com- pleting the Igiugig project, deploy- ing in Chile, and introduce three new products to the market: the Modu- lar RivGen river device, TidGen-80 community scale tidal device, and a large-scale tidal device, Optimor, cur- rently under development in Europe. "To date, we've received market outreach from 48 countries, 25 U.S. states and 11 Canadian provinces and territories about installing our sys- tems," says Davies. "We look for- ward to turning these inquiries into projects and deployments over the next few years." L a u r i e S c h r e i b e r , M a i n e b i z s e n i o r w r i t e r , c a n b e r e a c h e d a t l s c h r e i b e r @ m a i n e b i z . b i z » C O N T I N U E D F RO M P R E V I O U S PA G E As we advanced our abilities in Maine, our work attracted the attention of remote communities around the world. — Stuart Davies ORPC P H O T O / F R E D F I E L D Mechanical engineer Benjamin Winn with a large testing tank at the ORPC facility at TechPlace in Brunswick