Venture-backable climate startups span everything from alternative plastics and water filtration to building materials and green chemicals. Over the past few months, I’ve helped Propeller recruit and screen founders for its 7th Ocean MBA cohort. The work was both a crash course in emerging technologies and an introduction to the tenacious founders bringing them forward. As I head back to the classroom, here are a few takeaways from that experience:

Each year, our friends at CTVC release the iconic “climate market map”—a crisp snapshot of where innovation and capital are flowing across seven key sectors: Energy, Transportation, Food and Ag, Industry, Built Environment, Carbon, and Climate Risk. It’s a roadmap for founders, funders, and policymakers navigating the fast-moving world of climate tech. But climate is redefining these industries. The lines between sectors are fading, the tech is more advanced, and one critical resource is still flying under the radar: the ocean.