Taming the Tides: ZCC Invests in Porpoise Power to Unlock Cost-Competitive Baseload Energy

We are excited to announce our investment in Porpoise Power! ZCC led Porpoise Power’s £1.2M pre-seed round in 2024, alongside Creator Fund and Oxford Science Enterprises (OSE), and the company is now launching from stealth. Porpoise Power is a UK-based startup spun out from the University of Oxford developing next-generation tidal stream technology that will make tidal energy a serious contender in the global renewable energy mix. 

Porpoise Power’s bio-inspired innovation enables energy production in a larger range of tidal flows and water depths than has previously been possible. This significantly expands the number of viable deployment sites and total potential capacity for tidal energy, transforming it from a niche technology into a mainstream solution for baseload renewable power. Critically, their breakthrough system makes tidal energy cost-competitive with offshore wind, but unlike wind, it can deliver predictable baseload power like much more expensive nuclear generation. With this innovation, Porpoise Power unlocks the potential to meet the entirety of the UK’s baseload electricity demand from tidal power alone with just four 30 km X 30 km arrays.

Our investment is supporting the Porpoise Power team as they progress technology development, model LCOE at scale, and conduct trials at UK tidal sites.

Design concept for grid scale Porpoise Power tidal energy unit.

Why we invested

Tidal stream energy has long held promise as a predictable, local, zero-carbon energy source. But historical attempts to commercialise it have been hampered by limited viable locations, high capital costs, and technological underperformance leading to low power output. Porpoise Power changes the game.

Drawing inspiration from dolphins, the company has developed a highly efficient, oscillating hydrofoil system. Their next generation hydropower design operates efficiently across a wide range of tidal conditions, both in speed and depth, and significantly increases the capacity factor compared to traditional tidal turbines. Their novel system is stable and robust, and designed to minimise ecological disruption, making it suitable for deployment even in environmentally sensitive areas. These engineering advances unlock an order of magnitude more viable tidal sites globally.

The result is a solution with the potential to deliver firm, predictable, clean power at competitive costs. This represents a transformative leap for tidal energy — one that could make it a foundational pillar of a decarbonised grid.

Porpoise Power's technology being tested at a UK tidal site

A founding team with the experience to execute

We were particularly impressed by the strength and diversity of the founding team. CEO John Kennedy brings deep experience scaling mission-driven businesses and leading deeptech ventures, including Green & Black’s, Wayfair, and medtech startup Adlens. Co-founder Adrian Thomas, Professor of Biomechanics at Oxford University, is an expert in unsteady fluid dynamics and bioinspired engineering, and was previously the founder of Animal Dynamics. They are joined by Hilary Struthers, a former Shell executive and NED at Low Carbon, and Martin Hall, a seasoned marine and embedded systems engineer.

The team combines deep technical credibility, a pragmatic commercial approach, and a strong climate mission — all essential attributes for tackling the hardest climate problems.

Left to right: Adrian Thomas, Hilary Struthers, John Kennedy

Tidal energy’s moment has arrived

Global electricity demand is set to double by 2050, driven by electrification, AI, and reindustrialisation. As highlighted in Lazard’s 2024 Levelized Cost of Energy report, a diverse generation mix is needed to meet baseload needs. While wind and solar continue to scale, they require increasing amounts of grid balancing, storage, and overbuild.

Tidal energy, by contrast, is predictable and synchronous with gravitational cycles, offering a clean, stable, and complementary counterpart to intermittent sources. Porpoise Power’s design massively increases the global potential for tidal stream generation, opening up new geographies and reducing total system costs by displacing peaking fossil fuel plants.

What’s next

The Porpoise team is now advancing toward pilot deployments at UK test sites, supported by a clear technology roadmap and rigorous techno-economic analysis. With their next fundraising round Porpoise Power aims to deploy hundreds of kilowatts of grid-connected tidal generation capacity, supported by a UK Contract for Difference (CfD) to demonstrate the technology’s commercial readiness and pave the way for wider adoption.

This is exactly the kind of company we like to back: a world-class scientific founding team, pioneering a transformative technology, with the potential for outsized climate impact.

We are proud to support Porpoise Power on their mission to bring reliable, renewable, affordable energy to the grid — and to give tidal energy the role it deserves in our zero-carbon future.

Porpoise Power team at tidal test site.