Emerging & Innovation

Smart matchmaking for a starved ocean economy

How we helped an international coalition connect ocean projects with the funders who can move them forward

NoA Ignite — The digital consultancy that delivers

ocean projects registered
859
international philanthropists
50
matches established
20+
platform visits
8500

Challenge
Ocean projects and philanthropic foundations worldwide were stuck in a broken funding market: 76% of UN-endorsed ocean projects never found a funder, both sides searched for each other in silos, and no tool understood what either meant by their priorities. REV Ocean and the UN's Foundation Dialogue Group set out to fix it.
Solution
Together with an international coalition including UN Ocean Decade, Voice of the Ocean, Baltic Sea Conservation Foundation, Schmidt Ocean Institute and REV Ocean, we designed and built Ocean Matcher: an AI platform that understands what funders and projects truly mean, then matches them accordingly.
Impact
Launched in June 2025, Ocean Matcher has registered 850 ocean projects and 50+ international philanthropists, produced 20+ matches, and helped move real grants to real ocean projects.
Tech
- PLATFORM
  AZURE
- AI / ML
  SEMANTIC INTELLIGENCE
- SEARCH
  HYBRID VECTOR RETRIEVAL
- STACK
  NEXT.JS / .NET / PYTHON

Two urgent needs that couldn't find each other

The ocean covers 70% of our planet, but funding for its protection remains scarce. The UN estimates that only 24% of the ocean projects it has quality-endorsed receive full or partial funding.

The other 76% do not fall short because they lack merit. Too often, they simply never meet the right funder.

Philanthropic foundations and ocean projects operate in separate worlds, relying on slow, bilateral processes with no reliable way to identify their strongest matches. Differences in language, culture and terminology add further friction.

At a UN-led meeting in Monaco in autumn 2023, the Foundation Dialogue Group identified this disconnect as a problem that could be solved. A coalition of international philanthropic organisations came together around the opportunity, bringing in NoA Ignite to turn the idea into a working digital platform.

An algorithm built to understand intent

At the heart of OceanMatcher is Matching Sets, a feature that allows philanthropists to describe their investment strategies freely and in their own words. No rigid categories. No squeezing complex ambitions into predefined boxes.

We designed an intelligent matching engine that uses large language models to convert funder preferences and project descriptions into text embeddings. This allows the platform to understand meaning, not just keywords. A seagrass restoration project in the Adriatic can, for example, match a funder interested in “blue carbon ecosystems”, even when the wording differs.

Similarity is calculated using k-nearest neighbours and cosine similarity, then enriched with sentiment analysis. The platform can understand not only which themes a funder mentions, but how strongly they feel about them and what they would prefer to avoid.

We made that intelligence easy to understand through design. Early testing showed that people from different cultures interpreted the same numerical match score in very different ways. We replaced the number with a visual fuel gauge that communicates the strength of a match across languages and contexts.

User research also revealed an opportunity beyond the original brief. Foundations did not only want to discover projects. They wanted to find one another and unlock opportunities for co-funding. That insight shaped a second core feature: philanthropist-to-philanthropist discovery.

The interface runs in dark mode, a visual nod to the 75% of the ocean that remains unexplored, while also helping reduce energy use.

Matches that turned into grants

OceanMatcher launched in June 2025 at UNOC3 in Nice, the world’s largest ocean conference.

Built as a B2B platform for a small, highly specialised global audience, OceanMatcher has already gained tangible traction. It brings together 860 registered projects from around the world, including every UN Ocean Decade Endorsed Project. Forty-seven international philanthropists are actively using the platform, over 50 matches have been established, and OceanMatcher has received 8,500 visits.

Most importantly, connections made through the platform have resulted in real grants for ocean projects.

The UN Ocean Decade has recognised OceanMatcher as a concrete example of technology catalysing the partnerships the ocean needs.

“OceanMatcher is a powerful example of how the UN Ocean Decade is catalyzing innovation and partnerships to meet real-world needs,” says Vidar Helgesen, Executive Secretary of UNESCO-IOC.

One shared challenge. More meaningful matches. Real funding for the work our ocean needs.

From a broken funding market to a working match

Building something with real-world stakes and a global, non-technical audience? Let's talk.

Rune Foyn: Commercial Director Norway; (+47)40854831|rune.foyn@noaignite.com

Smart matchmaking for a starved ocean economySmart matchmaking for a starved ocean economy

ocean projects registered

international philanthropists

matches established

platform visits

In short

Challenge

Solution

Impact

Tech

From a broken funding market to a working match

Smart matchmaking for a starved ocean economy