Wildflow Coral

Wildflow Coral — our first product, a comprehensive digital twin of coral reef ecosystems based on multimodal foundation models for biodiversity.

Why?

Billions of years of evolution created Earth’s vibrant ecosystems – they are inconceivably rich! We have so much to learn from this beautiful complexity. We want to build a future where humans and nature thrive and enrich each other. That’s why we chose to start with coral reefs. They are the most complex, beautiful, endangered, and important ecosystem. They are home to 25% of marine life while occupying only 0.1% of the ocean. Sadly, we’re on track to lose 90% of coral reefs by 2050. The time to act is now. Over half a billion people rely on coral reefs. Already vulnerable communities are the first to suffer the consequences. We have to make a lot of critical decisions about them!

How?

Wildflow Coral is our first product. We take all the data across all modalities, such as 3D photogrammetry, bioacoustics, underwater videos, remote sensing, eDNA, environmental data like currents, and more, to create the ultimate digital twin of any coral reef ecosystem and make it available to the world. And we do it at a planetary scale.

What?

This enables deep modelling of complex ecosystem dynamics, such as population dynamics, predator-prey dynamics, energy transfer, and phenological events (like spawning), and computes the ecosystem’s health and resilience metrics. Via rigorous analysis of multimodal data, it uncovers precise mechanisms driving ecosystem change, offering humans irrefutable evidence to steer their actions. It shows quantitatively how coastal development, agriculture runoff, invasive species, pollution, increasing water temperatures, and other pressures affect the coral reef ecosystem. It shows what the coral reef ecosystem gives us back through its services, such as coastal area protection and oxygen production. It coordinates conservation and restoration efforts worldwide. We know which practises work and which don’t. It guides human activities to understand, protect and restore coral reef ecosystems.

For whom?

Example: a new hotel is being developed, which causes more nutrients to end up in the water, leading to an algal bloom. Larvae of the crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) love eating algae, so their population skyrockets, damaging local coral reefs. The local economy plummets. The newly built hotel can’t attract tourists any more. Fisheries cannot catch fish because there are no fish anymore. Coastal communities face a cascade of challenges, from economic instability to food insecurity and increased vulnerability to natural disasters.

Billions of people and dollars depend on our ability to understand, protect and restore coral reef ecosystems. At the forefront of this battle are:

• Environmental NGOs and conservation/restoration organisations who need to monitor reef health holistically, optimise conservation/restoration practices, prove ROI to donors, and maximise the impact of their work.

• Philanthropic organisations and foundations (and others who fund conservation and restoration) need to identify high-impact projects and allocate resources more effectively using data-driven insights from the digital twin. Without the ability to understand coral ecosystems, we can’t truly unlock projects, so billions are waiting or, in fact, wasted.

• Coastal communities and local governments need to protect their livelihoods.

• Governments and policymakers need to develop and roll out effective, precise environmental policies to protect nature (similar to biodiversity net gain, SBTN, TNFD, etc).

• Research institutions need to accelerate scientific discovery by harnessing the power of AI-driven analysis of massive datasets.

• Insurance companies need to gain precise risk assessment tools for coastal properties and marine assets.

• Coastal tourism boards need to protect their most valuable natural asset, ensuring the long-term health of their economies.

• Citizen scientists and diving enthusiasts are looking for a way to contribute meaningfully to reef protection, enriching the global model with their observations.

For the first time, we could become the generation that actually leaves behind nature better than we found it.