Why Ocean Impact Investing Now?

Ocean investment is accelerating worldwide as the marine crisis deepens. While multiple ocean impact funds exceeding JPY 10 billion have been launched in Europe and the U.S., Japan—despite its strong potential—remains an “untapped frontier.” Against this backdrop, UMITO Partners is planning the “Blue Frontier Fund (BFF),” an ocean-focused impact fund designed in collaboration with international VC, Beyond Impact.

Why has blue finance not progressed in Japan? Together with Yuta Kumo of the Social Innovation and Investment Foundation (SIIF)—a leading actor in Japan’s impact investment space—we examine structural challenges such as the lack of evaluation frameworks, reliance on subsidies, and talent outflow, while exploring the contours, viability, and strategic rationale of a new ocean economy—the “New Blue Economy”—that BFF aims to realize.

The global acceleration of blue finance

– Why are “the ocean” and “finance” attracting global attention now?

Kumo: The concepts of “blue finance” and “blue economy” trace back to the 1992 Earth Summit［1］in Rio de Janeiro, but their real acceleration has come in the last 4–5 years. One particularly significant catalyst was the UN General Assembly’s proclamation of the “Ocean Decade”［2］in 2017—the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. It aimed to promote science-based approaches to achieving a sustainable blue economy by 2030. Since its official launch in 2021, we’ve seen significant movement in finance as well. Interest has never been higher. 

Murakami: The acceleration was also driven by growing scientific clarity around the ocean crisis.

Kumo: Exactly. The ocean absorbs about one-third of global CO₂ emissions［3］, making it critical for climate mitigation. But science has now shown that the ocean is approaching its limits.

Murakami: The Stockholm Resilience Centre proposed the “planetary boundaries”［4］framework, which defines nine environmental thresholds for safe human activity on Earth. Crossing them risks irreversible change. Many have already been exceeded, and in 2025, ocean acidification became the seventh boundary to be breached［5］. Excess CO₂ absorption is acidifying seawater, disrupting calcium carbonate formation in coral reefs and shellfish, and causing systemic damage to the entire ecosystem.

Kumo: These scientific warnings have driven international momentum. At COP15 in 2022, the “30by30” target［6］［7］—to protect 30% of marine and coastal areas by 2030—was adopted. At COP30 in Brazil last November, the conference chair explicitly mentioned the ocean alongside forests as an important focus of climate action.

Murakami: With rising awareness, capital has naturally begun flowing toward the ocean-related sectors.

Kumo: Just ahead of COP30, the UN Ocean Conference (UNOC3)［8］held in Nice, France hosted a dedicated blue finance forum. Governments and financial institutions accelerated their ocean initiatives in response, significantly elevating its global visibility. That said, it is still Europe and the U.S. driving this momentum. Multiple ocean startup funds at the JPY 10 billion-plus scale have already launched there, and investment is expanding rapidly. Asia is only now beginning to follow that lead. SIIF is also working on systemic ocean challenges and sees innovation finance in the ocean sector as a critical part of the solution. We are exploring the establishment of an ocean impact VC fund in Asia.

– What is happening in Japan under this global trend?

Murakami: Unfortunately, Japan has not yet seen significant capital flowing into the ocean sector as a whole. While investments exist in areas like offshore wind as part of broader climate initiatives, investments that directly target ocean challenges remain limited.

Kumo: There are financial institutions investing in specific regions or sectors, but no dedicated ocean-focused funds. In contrast, many of the ocean funds launched in Europe and the U.S. are impact funds［9］—explicitly pursuing both financial returns and social and environmental impact. To my knowledge, Japan has no such ocean-focused impact fund yet. However, Japan already has high-quality research and technological capabilities rooted in its identity as a maritime nation. The issue is not a lack of potential, but the absence of an ecosystem that enables commercialization. If diverse sectors align, share a clear understanding of capital allocation priorities, and collaborate effectively, Japan has the potential to generate significant global market value.

Structural barriers to blue finance in Japan

– Why hasn’t Japan been able to ride this wave despite its potential?

Kumo: One major reason is governance complexity and the difficulty of impact measurement. On land, ownership and management boundaries are clearly defined. But the ocean is vast and difficult to delineate.

Murakami: Especially the high seas［10］, which fall under no national jurisdiction.

Kumo: The high seas are perhaps the clearest symbol of that governance ambiguity. That said, just recently the BBNJ Agreement［11］—an international treaty to protect biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction—finally came into force, and we have at last reached a stage where the international community is beginning to pull together to tackle ocean challenges. The other challenge is impact measurement: quantifying ecological outcomes in the ocean is far more difficult than on land — where solar energy can be measured in kilowatt-hours, forests in hectares. In the ocean, it’s just so much harder to quantify — how much an ecosystem has recovered, or how much plastic has actually been reduced.

Murakami: Even with advances such as environmental DNA［12］, much of the ocean remains unknown.

Kumo: Murakami, from your experience working closely with fisheries, how do you see these challenges ?

Murakami: In our work with fisheries communities, we are often asked how to measure the impact of transitioning to sustainable practices. More fundamentally, Japan’s ocean sector faces structural barriers to change—driven by limited access to growth capital and a subsidy-dependent system.
Fisheries are deeply embedded in local communities, making new market entry difficult. At the same time, subsidies provide baseline stability, reducing incentives to take on risk, raise capital, or pursue new business models.

Kumo: Policy design also prioritizes public funding over mobilizing private capital. Just the other day, someone involved in the shipbuilding industry told me that shipbuilding and ship repair require massive capital investment for equipment renewal, while an aging workforce is making technical succession increasingly difficult. While shipbuilding has historically supported local fisheries ecosystems, subsidies tend to concentrate on large vessels, and private financial institutions find it difficult to engage. As a result, capital does not flow to small and medium-sized operators, even though they are the backbone of local economies. This ultimately leads to the erosion of regional industrial foundations.

Murakami: That funding gap is also driving the next generation of talent overseas.

Kumo: It’s not that Japan lacks ocean-related startups—we estimate there are actually several hundred. However, limited access to early-stage capital prevents them from scaling. As a result, many talented entrepreneurs establish their companies abroad and raise capital from international investors.

The key: impact evaluation and ecosystem rebuilding

Murakami: Policy and industry mindsets won’t change overnight—but from an investment perspective, that inertia creates opportunity. As a largely underdeveloped space, it offers a compelling case for medium- to long-term returns.
To unlock that potential, credible impact measurement is critical. This is why SIIF’s effort to adapt and implement the Ocean Impact Navigator (OIN)［13］ for the Japanese context is particularly promising.

– What exactly is OIN?

Kumo: Put simply, it’s a globally shared standard for measuring impact in the ocean sector. While a general framework called IRIS+［14］already existed, there was no ocean-specific standard. Following the 2022 UN Ocean Conference (UNOC), OIN was developed under the leadership of “One Thousand Ocean Startups”［15］—an international initiative centered on ocean-focused financial institutions and investors. At SIIF, we position OIN as a common-language tool for connecting Japanese ocean startups with global investors, and we’re currently piloting and developing the rules for a Japan-adapted version. As part of that effort, UMITO Partners conducted a pilot last year applying the OIN framework to four Japanese ocean startups.

Murakami: OIN helps bridge the language and regulatory barriers that have long limited overseas investors’ understanding of Japan’s ocean technologies and startups, positioning it as a gateway to global markets. However, as a framework developed primarily in Western contexts, it does not fully reflect Japan’s realities. To be effective, it must be adapted with field-level insights and translated into a more practical, locally grounded tool. With SIIF leading this effort, blue finance in Japan has the potential to accelerate significantly.

– Why did SIIF choose UMITO Partners as an OIN partner?

Kumo: UMITO Partners has a track record of conducting on the ground impact evaluation work, as well as deep understanding of local contexts and values that are difficult to quantify. That gives them a “common language” capable of bridging both ocean startups and fisheries communities on the ground. And Murakami—while he has consulting experience with the U.S.-based international environmental NGO and is fluent in English—is also the kind of person who, when visiting a fishing community, sing traditional Japanese ‘enka’ songs with fishers at a local bar after hours (Kumo laughs).There is simply no one else in Japan who operates comfortably across those worlds.

Murakami: At UMITO Partners, our purpose is to rebuild the relationship between people and the ocean — grounded in sustainability, equity, and regeneration. So hearing that on top of our experience and expertise, our ability to bridge very different communities was also valued — that’s genuinely encouraging.

Why UMITO Partners is entering blue finance

Kumo: As OIN gains traction, we hope to see more blue finance players emerge in Japan. Hearing that UMITO Partners is launching BFF［16］ in partnership with Beyond Impact［17］was very exciting. Murakami, what drew you to enter this space?

Murakami: Through our work in sustainable fisheries, we have seen firsthand that fishers are central to solving ocean challenges. We have worked closely with them on the ground and continue to believe in their critical role.
However, the pace at which fisheries can transition toward sustainability is fundamentally slower than the rate of environmental degradation. This gap cannot be closed by fisheries alone. To drive systemic change across the ocean economy, we need to redesign how capital flows—redirecting it toward solutions that can scale at the speed and magnitude required. This realization led us to partner with Beyond Impact to design the Blue Frontier Fund, focused on investing in deep-tech solutions that directly address ocean challenges. At this stage, Japanese startups are expected to represent approximately 20–30% of the portfolio. However, BFF is not designed as a Japan-only fund. It is intended as a global platform—to help promising Japanese companies expand internationally, while also bringing leading global innovators into Japan.

Kumo: Japan has deep R&D roots, with high-quality research and IP accumulated across universities, research institutions, and major corporations. However, these have not been sufficiently translated into deep tech startups. Furthermore, the lack of access to real-world testing environments, particularly in fisheries, creates a major barrier to commercialization. 

Murakami: Exactly. Without partnerships with fishers, it is impossible to validate whether technologies truly work in the field. As AI and remote sensing technologies advance, field experience and practical knowledge become even more critical in structuring investment strategies.

Kumo: Fragmented sectors must be reconnected — and that’s exactly where UMITO’s purpose comes into its own.

Murakami: Modern society and industry rely—far more than is commonly recognized—on the ocean. This largely unrecognized dependence is driving irreversible impacts on marine ecosystems and undermining their resilience. While policy plays a critical role in shaping behavior, it is not sufficient. Achieving a regenerative blue economy requires innovation that reduces structural dependence on ocean extraction, enabling coexistence with nature while meeting the demands of economic growth. This transition must be grounded in a deep, data-driven understanding of ocean systems—from seabed structures and ocean conditions to water quality. Such data has wide-ranging applications beyond fisheries, including national security, insurance, and maritime logistics. Japan holds strong capabilities in these areas. Because ocean measurement is inherently more complex than land-based systems, technologies that succeed in this domain offer significant scalability and global relevance.

Kumo: Japan may well have the potential to lead in this domain. By fostering collaboration among investors, corporations, startups, research institutions, and fishers, we hope to work together to rebuild a resilient ocean ecosystem.

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