Patrik Möller On Raising $147 Million To Develop Wave Energy Technology that Generates Clean Electricity From Ocean Waves

For most people, growing up in the calm landscapes of southern Sweden might not trigger dreams of disrupting the global energy system. But Patrik Möller has never been like most people. In a riveting interview, he talks about his journey through building, scaling, and financing CorPower Ocean.

CorPower Ocean has secured funding from top-tier investors like NordicNinja VC, Santander Alternative Investments, SEB Greentech, and EIT InnoEnergy.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Startups are ultra-marathons, not sprints—structure and patience are critical for success in deep tech.
• Delaying VC funding until meaningful proof points are reached helps preserve long-term ownership and control.
• Wave energy, if harnessed effectively, could become the third-largest energy source globally by 2050.
• CorPower Ocean used a five-stage validation model, inspired by pharma, to de-risk technology development.
• Early funding was creatively sourced through grants, soft funding, and research programs to avoid early dilution.
• Building a diverse, international team emerged naturally from prioritizing the best global talent.
• Past failures in wave energy informed CorPower’s methodical approach, grounded in physics, proof, and resilience.

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About Patrik Möller:

Patrik Möller is CEO and co-founder of CorPower Ocean. CorPower enables reliable and cost-effective harvesting of clean electricity from ocean waves. He is co-President of Ocean Energy Europe and on the European energy Commissioner’s Clean Energy Industry Forum (CEIF). Patrik is a passionate entrepreneur with experience of building deep tech companies.

Connect with Patrik Möller:

• LinkedIn
• Crunchbase
• ResearchGate
• RocketReach

Read the Full Transcription of the Interview:

Alejandro Cremades: Alrighty, hello everyone, and welcome to The Dealmaker Show. Today, we have an amazing guest joining us—a guest who has done it a couple of times. We’re going to walk you through the journey of building, scaling, financing, and also building a team.

Alejandro Cremades: With different nationalities involved, we’ll also cover how you get inventors and scientists on board, as well as the process of developing and proving technology at various stages. So again, brace yourself for a really inspiring conversation. And without further ado, let’s welcome our guest today, Patrik Möller. Welcome to the show.

Patrik Möller: Thanks a lot. Great to be here, Alejandro.

Alejandro Cremades: So, born and raised in Sweden, close to the border with Denmark. Take us down memory lane—what was life like growing up for you?

Patrik Möller: Yeah, in southern Sweden—where people from Stockholm, where I live today, would say I’m from Denmark because of the dialect. A good place to start, I think. A nice, dynamic area.

Patrik Möller: And like many Scandinavian places, it’s quite international today. So yeah, a good place to start.

Alejandro Cremades: Now in your case, how did you catch the entrepreneurial bug? Were you always a problem-solver growing up?

Patrik Möller: I think I’ve always—through my dad and so on—been the kind of person who questions everything. Just because someone says this is the best way to do it, is it really the best way?

Patrik Möller: That mindset has always been with me, especially through school and university. Even if something is in a book, I’d ask, “Does it have to be the only way?”

Patrik Möller: I studied at UC Berkeley in California, and I saw more and more entrepreneurial activity happening around me. That was really inspiring.

Alejandro Cremades: How did you find yourself in the U.S., coming to Berkeley? I mean, it’s quite the trip from Sweden.

Patrik Möller: Yeah, and that was probably one of the best years of my life—so much fun and filled with extremely interesting people. I lived in the International House in Berkeley, with 600 people from essentially every country in the world.

Patrik Möller: I was taking classes in chemical engineering and microfabrication, specializing toward the semiconductor industry. A whole new world opened up. And Berkeley also has a lot of radical people—I think that resonated with me as well.

Alejandro Cremades: Now, obviously, when you got started with your first company—in Europe, especially Sweden—it’s similar to Spain where I’m from. The culture is different. You don’t always find that entrepreneurial mindset like in California.

Alejandro Cremades: So how did the idea of launching a company come to you instead of taking the corporate route, which I’m sure your parents would have preferred?

Patrik Möller: Yeah, it’s funny you mention that. I think my dad always had this idea—when I started, and even in the first few years after—I’d eventually apply for a job. But I had this idea while at Berkeley: to simplify semiconductor manufacturing by removing a lot of the process steps in metallization—the top layers of silicon manufacturing.

Patrik Möller: When I got back to Sweden, I decided to approach it step by step. We based our thesis work on that idea, and it became our master’s thesis. That gave us a proof point for the principle.

Patrik Möller: From there, we got really excited about starting a company. We were young, and everything felt possible. Having spent a year in California, we were energized by the idea of pushing boundaries.

Patrik Möller: That mindset helped me keep going. We ran the company for about 10–11 years and built something pretty successful. It was worth trying. The dedication to continue—taking it step by step—was key. When we registered the company, we formed a bold vision, but it took time to realize this would be a 10+ year journey. I definitely didn’t know that from the beginning.

Alejandro Cremades: What was it like raising money for the first time?

Patrik Möller: I think it’s a good idea to start companies right out of university. I co-founded the company with two university friends. At that stage of life, we had low living costs.

Patrik Möller: So we kept our expenses low in the first years, which helped us avoid raising large amounts of capital early. We applied for lots of soft funding—scholarships and grants—to support the research. I even enrolled as an industrial PhD student, so half my salary was covered by a research program.

Patrik Möller: We were creative about not raising too much private or venture capital early on. It took us a few years before we brought in our first investors.

Alejandro Cremades: And how much capital did you eventually raise for that company?

Patrik Möller: We raised about €50 to €60 million for that company.

Alejandro Cremades: Was it tough raising capital in Sweden? Back then, the European startup ecosystem was still in its infancy.

Patrik Möller: Exactly. This was in 2002. We were supported by an incubator in Stockholm called STING—Stockholm Innovation and Growth. We were among their first companies. Today, it’s probably Sweden’s most successful incubator.

Patrik Möller: Back then, the VC ecosystem wasn’t what it is today, and many of the big exits hadn’t happened yet. We brought in business angels early on—people who had built companies and had operational experience. They helped with funding and guidance.

Patrik Möller: A few years later, we received funding from a university-related tech investment fund. Later still, big names like Northzone and Wellington Partners came on board—Northzone from Scandinavia and Wellington from Germany.

Alejandro Cremades: Let’s talk about navigating cycles—like the Lehman collapse. It hit everyone. How did it affect you?

Patrik Möller: We had investors with a very U.S.-style mentality—money is no problem, how can we scale faster? So we scaled. We bought a factory in France and grew the team. Then Lehman Brothers collapsed.

Patrik Möller: We also had strategic investors on the cap table—big semiconductor machine companies from Silicon Valley. The idea was that there’d be a bidding war among them to acquire us.

Patrik Möller: But after Lehman, everything slowed down. Money became tight. Cash flow became a challenge. We downsized. We still had one or two years of test production before scaling sales. Several manufacturers were piloting our equipment, but we needed a new financing round to bridge that gap.

Patrik Möller: The board and I decided instead to sell the technology. We expected a good deal from the Silicon Valley strategics, but the market was sour. Eventually, we sold to another firm in Luxembourg.

Patrik Möller: That experience taught me the importance of timing. Our chairman at the time had been the CTO of one of those strategic companies. What we didn’t know was that a merger was happening behind the scenes—between the two companies we thought would bid for us.

Patrik Möller: A few months after our sale, that merger was announced—it was the biggest in the history of tool companies in Silicon Valley. Had we known, we might’ve waited. But they had no bandwidth to buy us then, so we sold elsewhere. Timing is everything.

Alejandro Cremades: Timing is everything. After spending 10 years on something and exiting—not quite the mega-transaction you’d envisioned—what was the biggest lesson?

Patrik Möller: One lesson is that in deep tech, where timelines are long, you need to be prepared for tough cycles. Planning long-term is crucial.

Patrik Möller: We were aiming for the sky with our exit and valuation, but we sold for much less. Another key lesson: don’t give away too much equity to VCs too early. If you’re a long-term entrepreneur, take time to improve your technology and make your company more attractive before bringing in investors.

Patrik Möller: We applied that lesson much more in my current company.

Alejandro Cremades: After that, you connected with a cleantech investor who played a pivotal role—not just in shifting your focus from semiconductors, but in introducing you to your business partner. How did that come about?

Patrik Möller: I had just accepted another job in the semiconductor industry. But a friend, a patent lawyer, told me about InnoEnergy—a group launching new technologies at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. He said, “They have tons of money and are starting new companies. You should talk to them.” I said I wasn’t sure since I had taken another job.

Patrik Möller: But I went anyway. They introduced me to a few inventors. One was Stig Lundbäck, a medical doctor inspired by the pumping principles of the human heart.

Patrik Möller: He had an idea for a radically new way to make wave energy work—finally harvesting energy from ocean waves. My initial reaction was lukewarm. Everything I’d seen about wave energy had failed. And I was just coming out of the very demanding semiconductor world. I thought, “I don’t want to do another complex deep-tech startup.”

Patrik Möller: But as we dug into the physics, we saw something remarkable. If the principles worked, we could finally build wave energy systems that could survive massive storms and generate far more power relative to cost and size.

Alejandro Cremades: Once you had that idea, how did you take action?

Patrik Möller: That’s what got us excited.

Alejandro Cremades: Because it’s obviously a very complex idea.

Patrik Möller: Very complex. And after space, the ocean is probably the most demanding environment on Earth. Everything out there had failed. Any investor who backed wave energy had lost money, more or less.

Patrik Möller: Not exactly that bleak, but a pretty tough environment, let’s say. Taking the learnings from my previous journey, we decided to go around and speak to everyone who had been doing something in the field. So we went to some of the main knowledge centers—we went to Lisbon, Edinburgh, Trondheim—cities where companies and universities had made the most serious attempts in wave energy so far.

Patrik Möller: We spoke with a lot of people who had built knowledge. We heard what had worked and what had not worked. Then we decided that if we were going to give this a real, serious chance, we needed to build conviction about the physics that would underpin a much more competitive solution.

Patrik Möller: We said we should think like the medical industry does—with different stages and phases of testing—and try to find financing to do one stage at a time.

Patrik Möller: We defined those five stages to reach an industrial, bankable product, clearly. There were already a number of European initiatives and projects that had begun defining these stages, and today the five-stage process in ocean energy has become a very established methodology.

Patrik Möller: I think we were among the first companies to adopt it. So we didn’t have to invent the whole framework ourselves. A lot of smart people had already started to think along those lines.

Patrik Möller: From a financing perspective, we were probably the first to say, “OK, we’re now going to finance three or four people to do stage one.” This involved small, buoy-sized tank testing and benchtop prototypes. It was going to cost a few hundred dollars.

Patrik Möller: With those tests, we aimed to prove specific metrics—like energy per force, energy per ton—proxies for cost efficiency in volume production once you start scaling the equipment. We completed the first stage with really good results.

Patrik Möller: Based on that, we were able to bring in more investment, grow the team, etc. Then we moved to stage two. By stage three, we had scaled up to maybe 40 people.

Patrik Möller: We built a half-scale machine and installed it in the ocean for the first time. We went to the Orkney Islands in Northern Scotland and got that machine installed. Up until that point, we were able to do it essentially without involving VCs. We had InnoEnergy, which is quasi-equity—they support you but take a little ownership.

Patrik Möller: We were extremely active in applying for European grants, Swedish grants, and all kinds of research support. So between 2012 and 2018, we completed three stages of product demonstration, proving the whole technology in the ocean—without inviting VCs.

Patrik Möller: At that point, we thought, “Now we’re ready.” We had maybe five or a bit more years left to develop a commercial product. We also had clarity and proof points. So we brought in our first investors—Almi GreenTech, a state-run Swedish green tech fund, and Midroc, an infrastructure company with a VC arm.

Patrik Möller: A year later, in our Series A round, we brought in SEB GreenTech, one of the major Nordic banks and their green tech fund.

Alejandro Cremades: Quick question there—for the people listening who may not know—what ended up being the business model of CorPower?

Patrik Möller: We are called CorPower Ocean. We are a wave energy OEM. We offer our technology in what we call CorPack clusters. We work with customers—utility companies and project developers.

Patrik Möller: We support them during the development of wave farm projects. When they reach financial close—typically run as SPVs—we manufacture and supply the equipment. We also help install it, working with marine operators and vessels.

Patrik Möller: During operations—which typically span 20 years or more—we offer to operate and maintain the technology for them.

Patrik Möller: So they are essentially asset owners, and we operate the equipment on their behalf. This allows us to guarantee the availability and performance of the technology.

Alejandro Cremades: As you were alluding to, you’ve now raised $130 million for the TopCo company, CorPower Ocean, and another $79 million for other projects. Walk us through the experience of raising money for this company. You had prior fundraising experience, so how has the journey been this time around?

Patrik Möller: Let’s say during our stage four financing, when we had proof from the half-scale system in 2020–2021, things were really good.

Patrik Möller: The cleantech market was booming in 2021, so we were able to raise that money fairly easily to complete our first full-scale proof point—stage four in our plan.

Patrik Möller: We raised about $20 million in equity, and topped it up with more non-dilutive funding.

Patrik Möller: That went well. We reached proof at commercial scale, survived 18.5-meter storms in Portugal, and are now powering the Portuguese grid with our equipment.

Patrik Möller: From here, we don’t need bigger machines—we just need more of the same, focusing on cost-down and industrializing, stabilizing the technology.

Patrik Möller: For that, we raised a $32 million Series B round, which we closed in October last year. It was led by Nordic Ninja.

Patrik Möller: That’s a London-based investor with Japanese LPs investing in Nordic cleantech companies—hence the name.

Patrik Möller: We also had Santander join the round, as well as SEB GreenTech and InnoEnergy again. Cisco came in as a strategic investor, looking at powering data centers with 24/7 clean energy. A strong Portuguese VC, Iberis Capital, also joined.

Patrik Möller: I would say that markets now—and continuing into this year—are the toughest we’ve seen since 2012. So we’re very happy we were able to close that round last year.

Patrik Möller: Since then, we’ve also secured EIC funding from Europe—€17.5 million in January. One of the two project financing grants we won from the Innovation Fund is also coming in now.

Patrik Möller: This year, we’re aiming to close an additional $20 million in a second close. A few industrial investors who know the space well will be joining, along with some financial investors. But it’s fair to say everyone has to work extremely hard in today’s market to raise funds for ambitious deep tech cleantech ventures. It’s rough out there.

Alejandro Cremades: Now let’s talk about people. Investors are part of it, but I want to ask about employees. You’ve been very intentional about diversity—you have something like 23 nationalities at the company. Why has that been important?

Patrik Möller: It’s mainly been about finding the best people. We haven’t intentionally aimed for a specific number of nationalities, but in searching for the best brains—and complementary experience—we’ve gone global in our hiring.

Patrik Möller: That’s allowed us to attract talent from around the world. Many have relocated to Sweden, Portugal, or Norway—our three main offices.

Patrik Möller: So the 23 nationalities wasn’t planned, but it’s created a very dynamic environment, rich in diverse experiences and cultures—which I think is extremely healthy.

Patrik Möller: Wave energy is truly a global opportunity. Ironically, Sweden, where we’re headquartered, doesn’t have much wave energy.

Patrik Möller: The European market is on the Atlantic coast—Norway, Scotland, Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal. In the U.S., it’s the West Coast.

Patrik Möller: Anywhere you find wave surfers, you’re likely to find good sites for wave energy. And having team members from different places, with local connections, is incredibly helpful.

Alejandro Cremades: People are betting on a vision. If you were to wake up tomorrow in a world where CorPower Ocean’s vision is fully realized, what does that world look like?

Patrik Möller: We talk about a wave-powered world. Wave energy becoming the third-largest energy source on Earth—after wind and solar.

Patrik Möller: Wave energy provides stability to the energy system. Whether you’re running a data center like Cisco or a large industrial operation, you need consistent 24/7 energy.

Patrik Möller: Wave energy fills the gaps—complementing solar and wind—and allows us to run a clean energy mix around the clock at the lowest possible cost. Our vision for 2050 is to become the third-largest energy source in the world.

Alejandro Cremades: I’ve heard you say the prize is very high once we get there. What are we talking about?

Patrik Möller: We’re talking about building a new Vestas in wave energy. We expect to reach $50 billion+ in sales by 2050, employing tens of thousands of people, and building a large-scale manufacturing industry.

Patrik Möller: That’s the industrial and economic value. But also, the challenge for the world is clear—solar and wind are currently the cheapest energy sources, but to go from 60% to 90% or 100% penetration, we need something else.

Patrik Möller: Storage helps, but system efficiency is higher when you have complementary generation sources. Wave energy helps us leave fossil fuels behind—because right now, we’re still using fossil to fill the gaps.

Alejandro Cremades: Time machine. Let’s say I put you back on the plane after Berkeley, as you’re heading off to start your first business. You get to sit down with your younger self. What one piece of advice would you give, and why?

Patrik Möller: One piece of advice would be: it takes time to build truly disruptive technology.

Patrik Möller: But maybe I wouldn’t want to know that. If you knew how long and hard it would be, maybe you wouldn’t start at all. Sometimes, a bit of naivety helps.

Patrik Möller: But the real advice—the big learning—is about the structure needed for success. This is a long-term game for long-term people.

Patrik Möller: Someone once said: it’s not a sprint—it’s an ultra-marathon. That’s the biggest lesson. It’s about making small, compounded wins that turn into huge wins over time. Maybe I didn’t fully appreciate that at the beginning.

Patrik Möller: You can reach me at pa****@***********an.com or find me on LinkedIn.

Alejandro Cremades: Amazing. Well, Patrik, thank you so much for being on The Dealmakers Show today. It’s been an absolute honor to have you with us.

Patrik Möller: Really nice talking with you. Thanks for inviting me.

*****

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