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👉 At a glance: Preferred equity SPV | Min $10K | Target $1M | First mission Q3 2026 | Priority dividends + equity upside
Hello,
For the past few weeks, we’ve been talking a lot about shipwrecks — hinting at the investment opportunity, and sharing pieces of the story as we worked through our due diligence.
Today, in lieu of the usual Sunday Edition, I'm happy to announce our due diligence is complete and the investment memo is ready.
Maritime I is our investment with Oceyon, a data-driven maritime recovery company using proprietary AI, robotics, and 75 years of archival intelligence to locate and recover valuable cargo from shipwrecks.
Note: Full Memo Access is Restricted to Accredited Investors
We have prepared a comprehensive deal memo with detailed analysis, financial modeling, and full disclosures.
However, due to regulatory and compliance requirements, we can only provide the complete memo to individuals who have self-declared their accredited investor status.
To access the full memo and invest:
- Declare your accreditation status
- Join the community so we can verify eligibility
- Express interest if you have not already done so.
Once completed, our team will review and send you the full deal memo within 24 hours.
In the meantime, you can explore the redacted overview below to get a sense of this opportunity.
📌 Details
- Deal Name: Maritime I
- What It Is: Dedicated Altea SPV investing in preferred shares of Oceyon AG, a Swiss maritime exploration and recovery company
- Use Of Proceeds: General corporate purposes aligned with Oceyon’s business plan (operations, technology, and regulatory infrastructure)
- Distributions: Quarterly, from salvage operation proceeds
- Return Profile: Priority dividends from recovery proceeds plus long-term equity upside
- Liquidity: Illiquid; distributions dependent on successful salvage operations
- Explorers Club Bonus Perk: Investors committing $25,000+ receive access to ship visits and live operational experiences
🌊 Three converging trends
Three converging trends are now making maritime recovery investable at scale:
- Soaring metal prices: Gold prices have roughly doubled over the past five years. Silver has followed. This changes the economics of recovery operations that were previously uneconomical at lower commodity prices.
- New technology: AI-powered imaging, autonomous underwater vehicles, satellite-based sensing, and photogrammetric 3D modelling have dramatically reduced the cost and time required to locate and survey wrecks at depth.
- Professionalisation: The industry is shifting from treasure hunting to regulated, compliance-first operations with proper government agreements, cultural heritage and environmental protections, and institutional-grade financial structures.
Oceyon sits at the intersection of all three trends
🗺️ The Core Opportunity
Information Asymmetry
The UN estimates over three million shipwrecks lie on the ocean floor. Only a fraction has been documented, and of those documented, the data is frequently inaccurate: wrong coordinates, exaggerated cargo values, conflated vessels, and treasure legends masquerading as historical records.
The Bahamas alone has 176 shipwrecks identified in archival materials, but only 19 have been identified underwater. That is a 90% gap between what we think we know and what we actually know.
This information asymmetry is the investment thesis.
In most industries, more data reduces competitive advantage. In maritime recovery, more bad data actually increases the edge for anyone with good data. The noise drowns out the signal.
Intelligence
Technology
Operations
📊 Deal Economics
Revenue Model
Revenue is generated from the sale of recovered cargo, primarily precious metals, coins, and other high-value maritime artefacts. The key variables driving returns are:
🧪 Sensitivity Analysis and Return Scenarios
Returns are driven primarily by three variables:
- Gross recovery value per wreck
- Oceyon's share of wallet, and
- The number of successful operations.
The table below shows scenarios across the initial four short-term operations.
These figures are directional. The complete framework — discrete-mission modeling, probabilistic outcomes, and explicit downside cases — is laid out in the deal memo for a deeper look.
🧯 Risk Mitigation
This is venture-style risk capital. Outcomes depend on successful salvage operations, accurate cargo estimates, stable legal and regulatory frameworks, and Oceyon’s execution as a pre-revenue, single-company investment. Investors should also expect multi-year illiquidity and currency exposure.
For the complete risk discussion, assumptions, and mitigants, please read the full Risks section in the deal memo.
👥 The Team
Nicolas Burer, CEO and Founder
Nicolas Burer founded Oceyon to bring institutional discipline and technological innovation to maritime recovery. He is a serial entrepreneur with 15 years of experience building and scaling businesses, including one successful exit.
Burer's background combines operational leadership with the commercial acumen needed to structure government agreements, manage multi-party stakeholder relationships, and build the financial infrastructure required for large-scale salvage operations. He serves as the primary interface between investors, governments, and operational teams.
Kim Hind, Survey Operations
Kim Hind brings 40 years of offshore survey and construction experience to Oceyon's operations.
His career spans the full spectrum of subsea work, from initial survey planning through to complex construction support operations. In an industry where operational execution is everything, Hind's four decades of experience provide the practical knowledge needed to manage the unpredictable realities of deep-sea work, including weather delays, equipment failures, and the engineering challenges of working at extreme depths.
Toby Royal, Government and Regulatory Affairs
Toby Royal is a lawyer with over 24 years in the maritime sector. His role at Oceyon covers the legal and regulatory framework that underpins every mission: negotiating agreements with sovereign governments, navigating UNESCO and cultural heritage protections, and ensuring compliance across the multiple jurisdictions in which Oceyon operates.
Given that legal disputes have destroyed more maritime recovery ventures than operational failures, Royal's role is arguably the most critical on the team.
Panos Sidiropoulos, Technology
Panos Sidiropoulos leads Oceyon's technology development with 20 years of experience in AI and remote sensing.
He oversees the proprietary computer vision pipeline that underpins Oceyon's technological edge: image enhancement, automated 3D reconstruction from underwater footage, and object segmentation algorithms. He further oversees the proprietary precious metal detection effor, which is one of Oceyon’s biggest competitive edges.
His work includes developing the AI models that will eventually enable automated gold detection and salvage guidance, currently expected in Q3 2026.
Andrea Pasqualotto, Salvage Operations
Andrea Pasqualotto has 15 years of professional salvage experience, with operations conducted at depths down to 3,000 metres.
He manages the physical recovery process: deploying and operating work-class ROVs, managing lift and transport of recovered artefacts, and coordinating with onshore logistics.
His experience at extreme depths is a critical capability given that many high-value wrecks lie well beyond the reach of conventional diving operations.
Birgit Pestalozzi, Impact and ESG
Birgit Pestalozzi brings 15 years of experience in sustainability and impact investment–including nearly a decade of leadership roles at Ernst & Young– to Oceyon's operations.
She oversees the company's commitment to pledging up to 10% of profits to environmental and cultural heritage initiatives, and ensures that ESG standards are integrated into operational planning from the outset.
Her role reflects Oceyon's positioning as a responsible operator in an industry historically associated with cultural destruction.
Supporting Team
The broader team includes Sebastien Pulido (Security Manager and Boat Captain, 20 years of experience), Silvan Paganini (ROV Engineer and Pilot, 10+ years offshore), and a senior historian with 70 years of historical research experience who has been instrumental in building the proprietary shipwreck database. A dedicated Finance lead is expected to join in Q3 2026 alongside hires for internal operations and analytics.
🧭 Explorers Club
Investors committing $25,000 or more receive access to the Explorers Club, which provides a unique experiential component alongside the financial investment:
- Ship Access: Guaranteed access to Oceyon's vessels during at least one active salvage operation. This is not a passive observation; it is the opportunity to be present during live maritime recovery.
- Operational Visibility: Direct exposure to the technology, team, and process that drives the investment returns.
- Community: Connection with other investors and the Oceyon team in a setting that goes well beyond standard investor updates.
The Explorers Club is designed to appeal to investors who are drawn to the adventure aspect of maritime recovery, not just the financial returns. It also serves as a powerful diligence mechanism: investors can see the operation firsthand.
FAQs
General
Q: What exactly am I investing in?
A: You are investing in an SPV that purchases preferred shares in Oceyon AG, a Swiss stock corporation. Your investment gives you economic rights to priority dividends from Oceyon's salvage operations, equity upside from the company's growth, and standard shareholder protections including anti-dilution provisions, tag-along and drag-along rights, and information rights. You do not hold shares in Oceyon directly; the SPV holds them on behalf of all SPV investors.
Q: How is this different from buying stock in a public company?
A: There are three key differences. First, this is a private company with no public market for its shares, so your investment is illiquid. Second, the preferred share structure gives you priority over common shareholders for dividends and in any liquidation or exit event, up to the amount of your capital invested. Third, the SPV structure means Altea manages the investment and provides reporting, governance oversight, and investor coordination on your behalf.
Q: What happens to my money after I invest?
A: The SPV deploys capital into Oceyon AG preferred shares. Oceyon uses the proceeds for corporate purposes consistent with its business plan, which includes funding salvage operations, advancing its AI technology pipeline, and supporting regulatory and compliance infrastructure across target jurisdictions.
Risk and Protection
Q: What are the biggest risks?
A: The primary risks are: (1) operational failure, where salvage missions recover less value than expected or fail entirely due to weather, equipment, or subsea conditions; (2) legal and sovereign disputes over wreck ownership or recovered cargo; (3) Oceyon business failure, as this is a pre-revenue company with limited operating history; (4) share of wallet risk, as government agreements may yield a lower share than the 40% base case; (5) timing risk, as missions may be delayed by months or years; and (6) total loss, as in any venture-style investment. This is not a guaranteed return.
Q: How is my investment protected?
A: Several mechanisms provide protection: preferred shares rank senior to common shares for dividends and in any exit or liquidation event; broad-based weighted-average anti-dilution protection applies for two years or until the next financing round; the Board requires qualified majority (66.67%) approval for major decisions; the SPV has board representation rights; and information and access rights provide ongoing transparency. However, none of these protections prevent total capital loss if Oceyon fails.
Q: What if Oceyon runs out of money before completing a salvage?
A: This is a real risk. If subsequent fundraising fails and operations burn through available capital without generating revenue, the company could fail. Preferred shareholders would rank ahead of common in any liquidation, but the recovery value of a failed maritime exploration company's assets (primarily intellectual property and equipment) may be minimal. Oceyon is evaluating a possible tokenisation mechanism for some of the shipwrecks where it can obtain a long-term permit.
Liquidity and Exit
Q: When can I sell my investment?
A: This is an illiquid investment with no defined exit timeline. Your liquidity comes from quarterly dividend distributions. Any transfer of your SPV interest would require Altea's consent, and finding a buyer for this type of investment would be difficult. The preferred shares in Oceyon carry standard tag-along and drag-along rights, so if a majority sale occurs, you participate. But you should plan for capital to be locked up for multiple years.
Q: What exit scenarios exist?
A: Four potential exit paths: (1) ongoing dividends from successful operations, which could return capital multiple times over if the company scales as projected; (2) a sale or IPO of Oceyon, triggering the liquidation preference where you recover your capital before common shareholders; (3) acquisition of Oceyon by a larger maritime, mining, or energy company; (4) secondary sale of your SPV interest to another qualified investor. The most likely near-term return mechanism is dividends, not a corporate exit.
Market and Industry
Q: What happens if someone else finds the same wreck?
Q: How does this compare to deep-sea mining?
A: They are different activities with different risk profiles. Deep-sea mining involves extracting mineral deposits from the ocean floor and faces significant regulatory opposition (the International Seabed Authority moratorium debate) and environmental concerns. Maritime recovery involves locating and recovering man-made cargo from identified shipwrecks, typically with government cooperation. The regulatory pathway is clearer, the environmental impact is lower, and the targets are specific rather than speculative.
How to Invest in Maritime I
Maritime I is for accredited investors only.
To access the full memo and invest:
- Declare your accreditation status
- Join the community so we can verify eligibility
- Express interest if you have not already done so.
We’ll email the memo & investment documents to you.
Questions?
Ask questions to the Oceyon team directly in our Maritime I Space, or email [email protected]
Cheers,
Wyatt
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