Founder and CEO Richard Hardiman was inspired to start the company after observing people using nets to fish rubbish from water. A firm believer in using technology to replace mundane tasks, Hardiman set out to address the inefficiency he saw: “I wanted to solve that inefficiency rather than a pollution problem.”

“I see myself as an accidental environmentalist,” mentions Hardiman, “I wanted to find a more efficient way of doing a particular job, but it's got a wonderful knock-on effect.”

We first spoke to Hardiman back in 2022, so it seemed the right time to check back in to see how far the company has come and where they are now.

New products

In 2022, RanMarine’s focus was the WasteShark, a compact, dining table-sized ASV that collects rubbish and biomass such as algae.

Equipped with LiDAR for navigation, the WasteShark runs on 4G connectivity and can autonomously operate for 6–8 hours, making it an efficient tool for cleaning waterways.

Beyond waste removal, RanMarine ASVs are equipped with additional sensors to monitor water quality, gathering live data on parameters such as pH, temperature, and chemical levels. These insights are made accessible through RanMarine Connect, an intuitive interface that compiles impact reports and helps clients track environmental improvements. This dual functionality – waste removal and water quality monitoring – has positioned RanMarine as a leader in the field.

Since then, RanMarine has introduced a larger and more powerful model of its flagship ASV, known as the MegaShark, which was launched in August 2024.

Hardiman described it as “four to five times the size of the WasteShark, with the capacity for heavier-duty loads.” Like its predecessor, the MegaShark targets floating waste but offers expanded capacity and allows operators to control it remotely or onboard from a helm.

Discussing other updates in the company, Hardiman said: “We’ve also made the WasteShark a lot faster and a lot more powerful, so it can be deployed in more challenging environments, and it is able to push against harder rivers, and speed up collection.”

Hardiman shared another breakthrough: the OilShark, a specialised ASV designed in partnership with HEBO Maritime Services to tackle oil spills. Built on the same platform as the WasteShark and MegaShark, the OilShark is intended for ports and harbours, where oil spills can have devastating environmental and economic impacts. “Oil spills can close off entire terminals, costing ports commercially and harming ecosystems,” said Hardiman.

Developing from cleaning only solid pollutants, to now introducing the OilShark to clean up oil spills means that RanMarine is now able to use its technology to clean waterways in every way that they would need to be cleaned. Even better, not only does this do good for the environment, but it is commercially savvy and attracts more customers.

RanMarine’s growth

It is not only RanMarine’s product line which has grown, but the entire company has expanded. Since last speaking to RanMarine its reach has spread across the world: “I think when we last spoke, we were in about 15–16 different countries, now we’re in over 31 countries around the world.”

The company has also grown its workforce. “We’ve expanded our sales team in the US and scaled up our robotics team significantly. Advancing our autonomy and software capabilities internally has been a big focus.”

RanMarine has nearly doubled in size, a testament to its sustained growth. While there have been challenges, Hardiman remains optimistic: “We’ve ticked many boxes on our roadmap. Not always on time – funding can delay things – but we’ve made strong progress.”

The ebbs and flows

RanMarine is unique among tech companies for relying largely on self- funding. This independence comes with challenges, particularly during periods of low sales. “R&D becomes harder to prioritise when sales slowdown,” Hardiman admitted.

Being an early innovator in the space has meant that RanMarine has often paved the way in the industry: “It’s a very new space to be operating in. I think the challenge is always when you when you invent something new like this, you've got to convince the world it’s the right solution. That takes a lot of energy. It’s like pushing large stones up steep hills.

“We were one of the first companies to begin this kind of journey. It’s not a ubiquitous product, so people didn’t know about it and you had to tell them and explain why it was better than whatever they were using before. I’ve seen that changing. Since we last spoke, around three other viable companies have come into the market, so the space is growing.”

With the space growing, that means the competition is growing too. But for Hardiman, this isn’t an issue. He explained: “The space is growing and the competition is growing, which is good, because I think it shows that there's an attraction, not only from people wanting to use these products, but also people wanting the best in this kind of technology for the future. From this point of view, people are asking less about what it is, and more about how they can get it, and why is it better or worse than a competitor, which I think is an interesting stage to be in.

“It also means that there's more of a spotlight on the issue at hand. It's not one person shouting in the crowd, it’s a lot more people making a noise about this.”

RanMarine has had its fair share of highlights as well. The growth and expansion that RanMarine has experienced, and its range of products is one. Hardiman said: “I think getting a new product up and running [is a highlight]. We’d been working on the WasteShark for so long, that to launch a whole new product like the MegaShark was incredibly exciting.”

The leap from a compact ASV to a boat-sized robot capable of handling significantly larger loads marked a turning point for the RanMarine. Hardiman recalled: “I think the big moment for us was when we actually put it in the water and it validated the concept design.”

Lessons learned

With the highs and lows come the lessons learned, and from his founding journey, Hardiman has learned a lot.

“I think we may have made a mistake in 2022/23 trying to expand too quickly. I think it wasn’t the right decision, but hindsight is always 20/20. I think the learning there is that you should grow within the space you can as quickly as you can, rather than trying to accelerate and hope.”

Surrounding yourself with people that believe in the startup and its mission is also key. Hardiman is thankful for the people that are attracted to the company and its ethos: “What is so amazing to me is the attraction to our business. We’ve got a lot of really intelligent people that can be working anywhere in the world, but the nature of what we’re doing is so interesting and driven towards helping the planet, that we get really amazingly dedicated people that will stay with you through those harder times.

“People are not necessarily there just to get a paycheck, but also they want to make a difference – it’s about purpose!”

Sailing the seas

Looking to the future of RanMarine, Hardiman said: “Right now we’re very focused on our commercial growth. We have a strong R&D team who are always iterating current products or working on these next products, like the OilShark. But I think now our real big step is to make this commercially bigger and better.

“We’re transitioning from being an R&D company that sells, to a commercial company that still innovates.”

This next stage for RanMarine is key to its growth and longevity. Having been founded in 2016, Hardiman admitted his relief of getting out of the dreaded phase of startup life where statistical survival isn’t on your side.

Hopefully, RanMarine will be clearing waterways and continue to establish its name and position in the industry for many more years to come.

This article originally appeared in the January/February 2025 issue of Startups Magazine. Click here to subscribe