SeaBubbles and the EIC Accelerator: Hydrofoil Taxis Run Aground

SeaBubbles promised to lift city traffic off the roads and onto the water. Its small electric boats ride on underwater wings, called hydrofoils, that raise the hull clear of the surface once the boat picks up speed, cutting drag, waves and noise. The idea came from Alain Thébault, whose sailing hydrofoil trimaran broke the sailing speed record in 2009. In the European Commission's 9 January 2019 cut-off of the EIC SME Instrument Phase 2, the Horizon 2020 forerunner of today's EIC Accelerator, SeaBubbles won a grant of €2,036,877.50 towards a €2,909,825 project to "industrialize SeaBubbles and trial them in several cities in EU and in the world", according to CORDIS. The Commission's list of selected companies names Seabubbles, Paris, as the only beneficiary of the project.

The project ended in October 2021. Four years later, on 19 November 2025, the Lyon commercial court converted the company's receivership into a judicial liquidation, according to the official company register data and LyonMag, which reported that no buyer had been found to finance industrial production.

Where SeaBubbles Stands Now

SeaBubbles is insolvent and in liquidation. The register notices published in the French official company directory and its BODACC gazette record the sequence: the company stopped payments on 3 July 2025, the Lyon commercial court opened receivership (redressement judiciaire) on 22 July 2025, and on 19 November 2025 it converted the case into liquidation and appointed MJ Synergie as liquidator. The statement of creditors' claims was filed at the court on 29 June 2026. The company's website, seabubbles.com, did not load when checked on 7 October 2026.

In an August 2025 statement published through the French naval industry association GICAN, SeaBubbles said it had asked for court protection itself "in a particularly tense economic context for the whole boating sector" and was looking for an investor or buyer by 15 September 2025, pitching its foils and flight control for maritime drones and defence as well as transport. Actunautique reported in November 2025 that no viable offer came. What happens to the company's patents in the liquidation is not public.

The Technology: A Car-Sized Boat That Flies

Hydrofoils are an old idea, but most commercial hydrofoils are large diesel ferries. SeaBubbles combined foils with electric propulsion in a four-passenger "Bubble" the size of a small car. The CORDIS objective gave a top speed of 30 km/h with no emissions, and claimed trips "2x faster than a regular taxi and at a comparable price". In 2020 Thébault told AFP, via Maddyness, that flying 50 centimetres above the water cut drag by 30% to 40% and that a boat ran 2.5 hours on a charge. The plan also included docks that would charge the boats from solar panels and turbines in the river.

Under its later owners, SeaBubbles developed an eight-seat model, SmartBubble, with retractable foils and automatic flaps that it said saved 40% of propulsion energy. It was shown at the Cannes Yachting Festival in September 2024 after certification, according to the company's press release and Figaro Nautisme, which reported four patent filings. At the same time SeaBubbles bought the flight control technology of Neocean, a foiling catamaran maker from Sète. No sale of a SmartBubble was announced.

What the EU Grant Promised, and What CORDIS Shows

The grant agreement was signed on 24 April 2019, with the project running from 1 March 2019 to 31 October 2021. The objective on CORDIS, carried over from the company's earlier €50,000 Phase 1 grant (CORDIS 774086, 2017), still set targets that had already lapsed when the Phase 2 grant was signed: "60+ SeaBubbles operating by the end of 2018, active in 2-3 cities globally, as well as 12+ docks", revenues of "€10m+", and "50+ cities globally" by 2024.

The final periodic report, covering March 2020 to October 2021, lists work rather than units: a move "from a prototype to a production boat" with better stability and range, a battery and hydrogen fuel cell hybrid, a driver-assist autopilot, supplier talks and an industrial strategy, a reviewed business model and demonstrations on the Seine, Lake Annecy, Lake Geneva, Monaco and at Cassis. A CORDIS results article from April 2022 quoted the company as saying "We have sold one boat", with ten interested cities, and staff up from 7 to 24.

1. Production-ready boatDeliveredProduction boat reported; Bubble certified and carried paying passengers in 2023.
2. Trials in several citiesDeliveredSeine, Annecy, Geneva, Monaco and Cassis per the CORDIS report.
3. Industrialisation and series productionNot achievedOne boat sold by 2022; liquidated for lack of a buyer to fund production.
4. Network of charging docksNot achievedDocks were "studied"; none built is reported.
5. 50+ cities by 2024Not achievedOne two-month public line, Lake Annecy, 2023.

The project ran on schedule on paper, but its commercial goals were missed by a wide margin. The record supports a partly delivered verdict: the boat was engineered, certified and tested in public, while the fleet, the docks and the revenue never appeared.

Three Bosses in Two Years

The company changed hands in the middle of its EU project. In April 2019, the month the grant was signed, FrenchWeb reported that the founders had accepted a takeover offer for their majority stake from Chinese, Swiss, Swedish and American investors. Whether that deal closed could not be verified. The BODACC notices show Anders Bringdal leaving as president in November 2019, replaced by Philippe Gaï, then Thébault taking over in 2020 as the head office moved from Paris to Lyon. By February and March 2021 Mediapps Innovation, the Lyon investment company of Béchara Wakim, had become chief executive and then president, as Societe.com also shows. LyonMag reported an investment of €1.1 million.

Mediapps later described the company it bought in harsh terms: "heavily indebted, its prototypes abandoned, design entirely subcontracted", according to the August 2025 statement. That is the new owner's account and could not be checked against filed figures, because the accounts carry a confidentiality declaration. Thébault, for his part, attacked the new management on LinkedIn, writing of a "lethal risk" for Annecy passengers, and the case went to court in Lyon in March 2025, LyonMag reported. In November 2025 the same outlet wrote that he had been ordered to pay €2,000 and had appealed; the outcome of the appeal is not public.

The Money

Before the EU grant, SeaBubbles was well funded for a hardware start-up. It raised €1 million in 2016 from Parrot founder Henri Seydoux, Partech and business angels, then €3 million from the insurer MAIF in December 2016 and €10 million more from MAIF Avenir in May 2017, according to tech.eu and FrenchWeb. A plan to raise €100 million in 2017 did not materialise, FrenchWeb noted. By August 2020 the company put its total raised at €13 million and was seeking €5 million more to build 50 boats at about €250,000 each, Maddyness reported, with nine orders claimed.

Few accounts are public. The company's share capital went from €1,382.22 to €1,000,000 in 2021 and to €1,066,666 in early 2024, according to BODACC notices. Its net loss was €603,900 in 2022 and €1,622,300 in 2023, according to Societe.com; the government directory gives €1,622,290 for 2023. Turnover for these years is not published. Whether the EIC grant was paid out in full is not public.

The EIC Fund did not exist when the grant was awarded; the January 2019 round was grant only, and no equity investment by the EIC in SeaBubbles could be found. CORDIS lists no other EU project for the company besides the 2017 Phase 1 study and the Phase 2 grant.

Why Europe Should Care

The Commission's Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy expects zero-emission marine vessels to be market-ready by 2030, and many European cities sit on underused rivers and lakes. SeaBubbles showed that a small electric foiler can be certified and run a public route in France. It also showed how hard the step from demonstrator to fleet is. Actunautique describes Sweden's Candela as positioning itself as the leader in electric foiling passenger boats, so the European market did not disappear with SeaBubbles, but the French attempt to lead it did.

The Verdict

Grants fund development, not market success, and SeaBubbles did move its boat from prototype to public service. But its targets were set for a company that would build boats by the dozen, and it never built them. SeaBubbles, its liquidator and the EIC were not asked for comment for this article, which relies on public records and published statements linked throughout.