A global marine research project that will begin in Bermuda has received its first financial donation from a local firm.

Ocean Tech, which was launched at the beginning of the month, will bring together the world’s top marine scientists and state-of-the-art submersible technologies to gather crucial information to save the world’s oceans.

This week the project’s organisers announced that they had received financial support from Seacrest Capital Group Limited as well as the Atlantic Conservation Partnership.

Henrik Schröder, an early investor in the Ocean Vet series and partner at Seacrest Capital Group Limited, said: “For us it is a natural extension of what we started with Ocean Vet.

“We are offering our full support to the Ocean Tech project and their mission to justify marine protected areas in Bermuda and around the planet.

“I am impressed by the speed and scale of their data-acquisition objectives and believe that Ocean Tech is a platform that can help to achieve the UN’s sustainable development target of conserving at least 10 per cent of coastal and marine areas by 2020.”

Richard Winchell, the ACP president, added: “We’re proud to be supporting Ocean Tech’s first mission in Bermuda.”

Andrew Smith, Ocean Tech’s executive director, told The Royal Gazette he was “thrilled” to receive the first local donation.

The Ocean Tech team will begin work on island next June and will join several local marine experts. They will be in Bermuda until September 2017 when the project will be temporarily shut down for the winter.

They will then return to the island between March and May 2018 for the humpback whale season before moving to the United States and teaming up with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association in Marine Mammal Sanctuaries.