In 2021, Ivan Francis spent 24 hours in Key Largo, Florida—25 feet underwater. He stayed in Jules Undersea Lodge, an underwater hotel and one of the few true underwater habitats (for humans, that is) that exist in the world.
Francis, an engineer and scuba diver of over 20 years, went to Key Largo because he had recently learned of a new style of scuba called saturation diving. This relatively new activity is a method of diving that involves staying underwater for long periods of time, and which is sometimes accomplished by living in underwater habitats.
A year later, in 2022, Francis (now an officially certified aquanaut) co-founded Argoneta with Andrew Lamm. The startup intends to “improve humanity by transforming our ability to live and work under the sea” by building underwater habitats in which customers can stay.
These underwater housing spaces are usually only available to experienced scuba divers, but Francis hopes to change that. He wants these habitats to be available for recreational use as well, with prices comparable to a high-end hotel room.
“We’re breaking convention in a few different ways,” Francis said. “We’re going in a different direction with square windows, and that’s specifically for user experience. We want someone, when they’re living here, to have it almost like you’re living in a house.”
Wide-ranging markets for saturation diving
The startup expects to serve a variety of markets in addition to the recreational crowd. A significant advantage of saturation diving over traditional diving is the time that is saved; unlike traditional diving, a saturation diver doesn’t have to waste time returning to the surface and getting back down to their preferred depth.
“When you’re a diver, you spend time underwater, and at the end of a specified time, maybe an hour or two, you go back up to the surface,” Francis said. “You stay at the surface for a specific amount of time, and you go back down again. It’s a ton of up and down.”
The time saved by saturation diving opens the door for a significant leap forward in the efficiency of scientific research; according to a 2012 article Argoneta cites, 10 days of saturation diving is approximately equal to six months of traditional diving field work.
The startup is also pursuing the market of coral restoration. Due to global warming, many coral reefs across the world are experiencing “bleaching,” a process in which corals expel algae from their tissues and turn white. While this process itself doesn’t kill the coral, bleached coral is significantly weaker and more susceptible to disease.
To combat coral death, experienced scuba divers break off pieces of healthy coral and replant them elsewhere. According to Francis, divers are the limiting factor for this process. If those divers could stay underwater for longer periods of time, coral restoration could become more efficient.
Despite the advantages of saturation diving, there aren’t very many underwater habitats in the world. Argoneta aims to change that, with plans to launch its first habitat by 2026 and expand to a total of 40 units by the end of a five-year span. And while 40 may sound like a lot to some, Francis and his team hope to triple that number some day:
“We think we can probably go to 120 of these,” Francis said.
According to Francis, the startup is planning to begin pre-seed fundraising in April or May. The company recently received an NC IDEA MICRO Grant and was also in the first cohort of the Founder Institute Rally.
QUICK BITS
Startup: Argoneta
Co-Founders: Ivan Francis, Andrew Lamm
Founded: 2022
Team size: 4
Location: Durham, NC
Website: www.argoneta.com
Funding: Bootstrapped; assorted grants; planning pre-seed
Interestingly, Argoneta isn’t alone in the underwater habitation space. Francis said that the Bristol-based Deep, another company seeking to build submerged habitats, is currently looking to build a footprint in the U.S. (and possibly in Durham).
“I feel fortunate to be here in the Triangle,” Francis said. “As it turns out, there’s a possibility that Raleigh-Durham could be the underwater habitat capital of the world.”
