Tim Janssen

Tim Janssen is the Co-Founder and CEO of Sofar Ocean, a company that describes itself as an ocean intelligence platform. Sofar builds real-time ocean sensing and marine weather products, including the Spotter Platform for ocean data collection and Wayfinder for voyage optimization.

Sofar’s own team page lists Janssen as “Tim Janssen, PhD” and “Co-Founder and CEO.” It also identifies Evan Shapiro as co-founder / Chief R&D Officer and Peter Rive as chairman. The same page lists Sofar’s investors as Union Square Ventures, Foundry, True Ventures, Craft, S2G, and Oceankind.

Before Sofar, Janssen worked in ocean science and research. The Org’s profile states that he was an independent research scientist and principal investigator at Theiss Research and NorthWest Research Associates from October 2012 to March 2016, where he acquired research grants and led projects on upper-ocean dynamics. From October 2008 to July 2012, he was an assistant professor of oceanography at San Francisco State University, and from January 2006 to December 2008 he was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Naval Postgraduate School.

Janssen’s academic background is in environmental fluid mechanics and physical oceanography. The Org lists a PhD from Technische Universiteit Delft, visiting research-scholar roles at the Naval Postgraduate School and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, graduate exchange study at Queen’s University, and BS/MSc training in environmental fluid mechanics and civil engineering from Technische Universiteit Delft. He is also a named author on ocean-wave research, including a 2020 arXiv paper on assimilating distributed ocean wave sensors.

• I did not find a public, verifiable personal angel-investing thesis, check size, or named personal portfolio for Tim Janssen.
• The strongest verified focus is operating-company domain expertise: ocean data, marine sensing, marine weather, shipping efficiency, coastal resilience, and climate-related ocean infrastructure.
• Sofar’s stated product focus is “one platform that captures real-time ocean data to reduce fuel costs, lower emissions, detect threats, and protect maritime assets at a global scale.”
• Sofar’s stated values include “Oceans First,” “Team Wins,” and “Ship for Impact,” with the company saying it chooses the ocean when forced to choose between “more profit or better oceans.”
• Axios reported in 2021 that Sofar’s data could improve weather forecasts and climate monitoring in ocean regions with large data gaps, and that its customers included climate scientists, shipping carriers, and foreign governments.