Dario Mutabdzija

Dario Mutabdzija is an American entrepreneur based in Silicon Valley, who co-founded the seed accelerator project Blueseed. He was previously Director of Legal Strategy at The Seasteading Institute. He is now head of business development at Israeli startup PayKey.

Mutabdzija was born in Sarajevo and immigrated in the United States with his family in the 1990s due to the breakout of the Bosnian War. He graduated from University of Hawaii at Hilo with a B.S. in Communications. In 2008, he obtained a JD from the McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, and in 2009 a joint LL.M. in Transnational Business Practice from the same school and the University of Salzburg, Austria. Prior to The Seasteading Institute, he interned at the Vienna office of multinational law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.

Blueseed is a startup community project that Mutabdzija co-founded in July 2011 with Seasteading Institute colleague Max Marty. The project is preparing to launch a ship near Silicon Valley to serve as a startup community and entrepreneurial incubator without United States work visa requirements. The platform is set to offer living and office space, high-speed Internet connectivity, and regular ferry service to the mainland. The existence of the project is due to the lack of U.S. visas for entrepreneurs. Instead, customers will use the much easier to obtain B-1/B-2 visas to travel to the mainland, while work will be done exclusively on the ship.

Mutabdzija's first television appearances were in December 2011, on the Stossel Show with John Stossel and on Fox Business in an interview with Shibani Joshi.

Later, he was interviewed about Blueseed on the BBC, on Charlie Rose's CBS This Morning by Jeff Glor, on CNN during the Erin Burnett OutFront show, and on First Business.

Who is Max Marty?

Max Marty is an entrepreneur based in Silicon Valley, who co-founded the seed accelerator project Blueseed with Dario Mutabdzija and Dan Dascalescu. He was previously Director of Business Strategy at The Seasteading Institute.

Marty was born in Florida of Cuban political refugees. He graduated from Muhlenberg College with a B.S. in Global Political Economy and Philosophy. Later, he obtained an MBA from the University of Miami.

Blueseed is a startup community project that Marty co-founded in July 2011 with Seasteading Institute colleague Dario Mutabdzija and seasteading ambassador Dan Dascalescu.The project is preparing to launch a ship near Silicon Valley to serve as a startup community and entrepreneurial incubator without United States work visa requirements. The platform is set to offer living and office space, high-speed Internet connectivity, and regular ferry service to the mainland. The existence of the project is due to the lack of U.S. visas for entrepreneurs. Instead, customers will use the much easier to obtain B-1/B-2 visas to travel to the mainland, while work will be done exclusively on the ship.

On July 31, 2013, Marty announced he was stepping back from day-to-day operations at Blueseed and taking on the role of Chairman of the Board of Directors.

Marty's first television appearances were in December 2011, on the After the Bell show with Liz Claman and David Asman and on the Stossel Show with John Stossel. On April 13, 2012, Marty presented Blueseed at TEDx Monterey. He was later interviewed by Richard Quest for CNN International, Melissa Francis for Fox Business and Jeff Glor for CBS This Morning. In November 2011, he spoke on Big Picture Science with Seth Shostak.

Marty said he would like to live in a society close to minarchism and if he weren't working in Blueseed, he would pursue radical but practical innovation in education, telecommunications, augmented reality, and clothing.

What about Blueseed?

Blueseed is a Silicon Valley-based startup company and a seasteading venture to create a startup community located on a vessel stationed in international waters near the coast of Silicon Valley in the United States. The intended location (outside the territorial seas of the United States, 12 nautical miles from the coast of California, in the so-called "contiguous zone") would enable non-U.S. startup entrepreneurs to work on their ventures without the need for a US work visa (H1B), while living in proximity to Silicon Valley and using relatively easier to obtain business and tourism visas (B1/B2) to travel to the mainland. After the conclusion of their incubation on the vessel, successful startups may relocate to Silicon Valley and employ a local workforce. The project received wide media coverage and the promise of funding from venture capitalist Peter Thiel, who also supports the Seasteading Institute, who ultimately did not invest in the seed round. Blueseed later obtained US$300,000 in seed funding, Bitcoin investments, and $9M from an undisclosed investor, and planned to lease a ship for its platform. Launch was planned for summer 2014, provided that $18M more was raised.

Blueseed is now on hold due to insufficient funding and the founders are working on different projects.

THE FOUNDERS

Blueseed was co-founded in July 2011 by Max Marty and Dario Mutabdzija, who had worked together at The Seasteading Institute as Directors of Business Strategy and Legal Strategy, respectively. Blueseed's CIO/CTO (later COO), Dan Dascalescu, who joined the company shortly after its incorporation, is also an ambassador for the Seasteading Institute.

In October 2012, Blueseed made public a page listing its partnerships with a number of other companies and organizations, including startup accelerators, incubators, and venture capitalists in the US and abroad, as well as companies that would help provide services and resources that could help Blueseed operate its seasteading platform.[20] Notable partners include Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman (legal representation), Fenwick & West (legal representation), Startup Weekend, Nanyang Technological University, Golden Gate Ventures, Open Network Labs, Start-Up Chile, MassChallenge (global pipeline partners), Singularity University, the Seasteading Institute (Blueseed being the first commercial seasteading venture), and Shopify (e-commerce platform).

MAP OF THE BLUESEED

A map of Blueseed's planned sea platform (and two buoys for positioning) in relation to the California coast. Also shown on the map are Half Moon Bay (the closest port) and the Silicon Valley area ranging from San Francisco in the north to San Jose in the south. The thick white line is the boundary of the official territorial waters of the United States. The cusp is due to the presence of the Farallon Islands, over which the US exercises territorial control, located in the north-west part of the map.