Editor’s note: Around the world, innovative businesses are helping to solve some of the biggest environmental challenges of our time. Conservation International’s investment fund, CI Ventures , provides funding and support for early-stage companies that are benefiting people and nature. In this occasional series, startup founders join CI Ventures investment experts to share their origin stories.

In popular culture, sharks are often portrayed as terrorizing innocent beachgoers. But in reality, they have far more to fear from humans than the other way around. Sharks rarely attack people — but they are the target of intense overfishing , with an estimated 100 million sharks killed every year .

Yet myths endure.…