Our Vision
GRoW Reefs designs and manufactures biomimetic substrates to jumpstart native reefs for coastal protection and ecosystem restoration.
Funded By
The Problem
Long before seawalls and riprap, reefs protected shorelines by reducing wave energy, filtering water, and sequestering carbon, creating living habitats that supported entire ecosystems.
Current reef restoration practices using shell, limestone or recycled concrete fragments invariably fail as the unstable material is covered by silt, or sinks into the mud, preventing reef-building organisms from growing.
— ProPublica, 2023
The Solution
Species
TECHNOLOGY
CACO3 CONCRETE™
Clean, marine-grade concrete
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Formulated to match the oyster shell or coral skeleton
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Sends chemical cues to attract embryonic reef-building species
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Provides early-stage nutrition, accelerating reef growth
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Works for casting or 3D-printing concrete
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pH of 8.2
No chemical admixtures · Approved by The Nature Conservancy
TEAM
CEO
Founder
Inventor
Evelyn tickle, faar
Evelyn Tickle is an internationally recognized expert and leader in coastal resilience and aquatic ecosystem restoration. She brings more than twenty years of experience and expertise in biomimetic design and concrete fabrication to the challenge of large-scale shoreline protection.
She is the inventor of GRoW's patented calcium carbonate–rich biophilic concrete formula and catalogue of reef-building products, deployed in the Gulf of Mexico, the Chesapeake Bay, along the California Coast, the U.S. Eastern Seaboard, and the south coast of the UK.
Evelyn holds a Master of Architecture from the Southern California Institute of Architecture and a Rome Prize in Architecture.
She is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, an MIT Solver, Biomimicry Institute Ray of Hope Prize Awardee, and was named USGBC-California's Net-Zero Trailblazer in 2024.
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