WHOI Spins Off Tech Start-up EOM Offshore
On February 5, 2018, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI)
sold its majority ownership interest to EOM Offshore's management
team and investors while continuing to receive royalties under
the existing exclusive licensing of its stretch hose technology.
Rockland Trust Bank provided a line of credit to assist the
change in ownership and help assure EOM Offshore's continued
financial strength.
EOM Offshore is a mooring systems and component company based on
technology developed by engineers at WHOI. The company was
founded as a start-up in 2009 to commercialize fatigue-resistant
hoses that have the ability to stretch two and half times their
original length without disrupting the transmission of power and
data to and from undersea sensors.
EOM Offshore's patented Stretch Hoses accommodate the heave and
surge of buoys on the ocean surface that are buffeted by winds,
currents and waves, while contracting to their original size
resulting in a small watch circle. This "stretchability"
decreases the wear and tear on the moorings, extending the
moorings' lifespans. The hoses' ability to absorb extensive
motion at the top of the mooring also leaves mooring components
below relatively motionless, providing a platform for a variety
of different instruments such as hydrophones or environmental
monitoring equipment that are movement and noise sensitive
Varying EOM Offshore mooring applications used in conjunction
with gliders and AUVs are being used in the NSF's Ocean
Observatories Initiative (OOI), a major oceanographic community
project funded by National Science Foundation to establish
long-term oceanographic platforms equipped with sensors that
monitor ocean conditions 24/7 for decades. In addition, EOM
Offshore mooring systems are currently being used to listen for
endangered Right whale calls and transmit those signals to shore
in order to warn ships of the whales' presence and to help
prevent lethal collisions. As growth continues in emerging
offshore renewable floating power-generation platforms, EOM
Offshore's power-handling capacity and fatigue-resistant hoses
offer key advantages to promote growth in this market.
"EOM Offshore is emblematic of advanced marine technology spawned
at WHOI by its ingenious scientists and engineers. New ownership
intends to work with those same brilliant founders to continue
EOM's product and service excellence while providing WHOI with an
ongoing royalty stream that will contribute to WHOI's continued
ocean leadership," says Dr. David Aubrey, CEO at EOM Offshore,
himself a WHOI scientist for some 22 years.
Feb 6, 2018