page_title: Blueseed
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Blueseed / History
caption_attribution_description: English: A map of the location for Blueseed's planned sea platform in relation to the California coast.
context_page_description: Blueseed is a Silicon Valley-based startup company and a seasteading venture to create a startup community located on a vessel stationed in international waters near the coast of Silicon Valley in the United States. The intended location would enable non-U.S. startup entrepreneurs to work on their ventures without the need for a US work visa, while living in proximity to Silicon Valley and using relatively easier to obtain business and tourism visas to travel to the mainland. After the conclusion of their incubation on the vessel, successful startups may relocate to Silicon Valley and employ a local workforce. The project received wide media coverage and the promise of funding from venture capitalist Peter Thiel, who also supports the Seasteading Institute, who ultimately did not invest in the seed round. Blueseed later obtained US$300,000 in seed funding, Bitcoin investments, and $9M from an undisclosed investor, and planned to lease a ship for its platform. Launch was planned for summer 2014, provided that $18M more was raised.
  Blueseed is now on hold due to insufficient funding and the founders are working on different projects.
context_section_description: Blueseed was co-founded in July 2011 by Max Marty and Dario Mutabdzija, who had worked together at The Seasteading Institute as Directors of Business Strategy and Legal Strategy, respectively. Blueseed's CIO/CTO (later COO), Dan Dascalescu, who joined the company shortly after its incorporation, is also an ambassador for the Seasteading Institute.
  The stated motivations of the project include providing an entrepreneurial alternative to the Startup Visa Act, which has not seen any progress in Congress, and creating "a vibrant workplace for innovative industries to bloom, unencumbered by onerous regulations on new technology-sector businesses". On November 30, 2011, venture capitalist Peter Thiel offered to lead Blueseed's seed financing round. The number of startups that expressed interest in locating on Blueseed grew from 31 on November 14, 2011, to 60 a month later, to over 100 by February 2012, 133 on May 7, 194 as of May 9, more than 250 as of June 6, and 336 on December 13, 2012.
  In October 2012, Blueseed made public a page listing its partnerships with a number of other companies and organizations, including startup accelerators, incubators, and venture capitalists in the US and abroad, as well as companies that would help provide services and resources that could help Blueseed operate its seasteading platform. Notable partners include Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman (legal representation), Fenwick & West (legal representation), Startup Weekend, Nanyang Technological University, Golden Gate Ventures, Open Network Labs, Start-Up Chile, MassChallenge (global pipeline partners), Singularity University, the Seasteading Institute (Blueseed being the first commercial seasteading venture), and Shopify (e-commerce platform).
  In December 2012, Blueseed announced that it had successfully closed its seed round with funding from Mike Maples of Floodgate Fund as well as Trevor Kienzle of Correlation Ventures, Xu Xiaoping and Wang Qiang of ZhenFund, and other investors. Thiel decided not to invest in that round.
  In March 2013, Blueseed announced the project's launch cost to be $27M, of which $9M were reserved for an existing investor.
  In April 2013, first non-founder employee, CFO Sam Bhagwat, left after thirteen months.
  In July 2013, Blueseed closed a funding round from Bitcoin investors.
  On July 31, 2013, two years after its founding, Blueseed co-founder Marty announced that he was stepping down from his day-to-day activities at the company and taking the role of Chairman of the Board of Directors. Dascalescu, the erstwhile CIO/CTO, became the COO of Blueseed, while Mutabdzija took the role of CEO.
  Blueseed originally estimated a launch timeframe of Q3 2013 but has since revised its launch estimate to Q3-Q4 2014.
caption: A map of Blueseed's planned sea platform (and two buoys for positioning) in relation to the California coast. Also shown on the map are Half Moon Bay (the closest port) and the Silicon Valley area ranging from San Francisco in the north to San Jose in the south. The thick white line is the boundary of the official territorial waters of the United States. The cusp is due to the presence of the Farallon Islands, over which the US exercises territorial control, located in the north-west part of the map.
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