💡Antoine Erwes Reveals All: Seaweed Industry Bottlenecks, Data Difficulties, and 3 Biggest Mistakes
PLUS insights into the EU Nature Restoration Law and Noriware's new pre-seed funding round.
“People rushed into the business without understanding exactly how they can guarantee a scale up in the future…” — Antoine Erwes, Seaweed First
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Dear algae technologists - hello and welcome to the Paxtier Report!
To start the email this week, check out this great article about nuns and Native women healing polluted waters using kelp…
In today’s report:
Markets: 🌊 EU Nature Restoration Law: A boost for biodiversity and climate.
Deals: 🤝 Noriware have successfully closed a pre-seed funding round of over $1 million.
Movers and Shakers: 📈 Antoine Erwes reveals all - seaweed industry bottlenecks, data difficulties, and 3 biggest mistakes.
Around the web: 🌎 Eat lower on the seafood chain for vital nutrients.
Markets and Investing
✂️Algae Market Snippets
Some big moves in recent weeks…
General
🌊 EU Nature Restoration Law: A boost for biodiversity and climate (Read more HERE).
🤝 Philippines agrees $1.14-B loans with World Bank for environment, farming (Read more HERE).
🏛️ New bill would create aquaculture office inside USDA (Read more HERE).
🌊 China and Russia block new protected areas in the Antarctic Ocean (Read more HERE).
🏛️ Seafish launches 2023-2028 strategy to address labour shortages, climate emergency, post-Brexit trade, and reputational issues... (Read more HERE).
📈 Japan seeks to boost food exports (Read more HERE).
🌊 Huawei-IUCN Tech4Nature initiative announces new phase of coral reef protection project (Read more HERE).
Macroalgae
🤝 Simply Blue Group and Arctic Seaweed have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for the co-location of seaweed and offshore wind farms (Read more HERE).
💸 Swede lands significant seaweed research grant (Read more HERE).
💸 Noriware have successfully closed a pre-seed funding round of over $1 million to further develop seaweed-based packaging material (Read more HERE).
🌱 Mara Seaweed, an award-winning Glenrothes-based seaweed business, has fallen into administration (Read more HERE).
🌊 Philippines' women seaweed farmers keep coastal families afloat (Read more HERE).
🌱 Akua launches kid-friendly kelp burgers (Read more HERE).
🤝 BASF in talks to make follow-on investment in Indian ocean farming startup Sea6 Energy (Read more HERE).
🏆 Colwyn Bay entrepreneur wins award and given five-figure grant (Read more HERE).
🏆Scottish Sea Farms has been recognised at the M&S Select Farm Awards 2023 (Read more HERE).
💸 Indonesian seaweed industry at a crossroads (Read more HERE).
🤝 BioAtlantis partnering in climate change crop yield project (Read more HERE).
🤝 Acadian Plant Health joins Global Seaweed Coalition to advance the international seaweed sector (Read more HERE).
🌱 Seppic has developed SAGACIOUS, a biomimetic anti-sagging ingredient, from brown seaweed (Read more HERE).
💸 Reward offered after sabotage of seaweed harvest (Read more HERE).
🌱 Savannah Morrow launches seaweed, wood fibre ‘basics made better’ line (Read more HERE).
🌱 Norfolk Seaweed Ltd have been granted a marine license by MMO to farm brown seaweed species off the north Norfolk Coast (Read more HERE).
🌱 ADAMA highlights significant progress in portfolio and operational sustainability. Note the launch of a seaweed biostimulant (Read more HERE).
💸 Pegasus Capital Advisors and the Global Fund for Coral Reefs announce investment in Carbonwave (Read more HERE).
Microalgae
🟢 Sydney start-up Phycologic has launched its novel Seatree which harnesses the photosynthetic power of algae to purify indoor air (Read more HERE).
🟢 Sophie's BioNutrients develops chlorella ice cream with more iron and B12 than cow's milk (Read more HERE).
📈 Cyanotech reports financial results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2023 (Read more HERE).
💸 Lee County’s state legislators announce funding for clean water projects. $125 million for water infrastructure projects to prevent Red Tide and harmful Blue Green Algae blooms (Read more HERE).
🟢 Algae farming viable option for proposed Sungai Baji agro park (Read more HERE).
🤝 Techna-X inks deal to farm microalgae, produce algae biofuel. The company has entered into a tripartite agreement with MYKO Global Sdn Bhd and RTA E&C Sdn Bhd (Read more HERE).
💸 Salem commission OKs solar mixing pumps to battle algae (Read more HERE).
📈 PCA SKIN launches anti-aging skin technology and product that uses algae (Read more HERE).
📈 MesoLyft launches two new skincare products (Read more HERE).
🏆 The Carbon to Value Initiative announces year three startup cohort for carbontech accelerator program. Congrats to the algae teams selected (Read more HERE).
🏆 "ProBioGenesis" was one of the winners for the EU Green Deal innovations (Read more HERE).
In depth with Peter Green
🌍 Antoine Erwes Reveals All - Seaweed Industry Bottlenecks, Data Difficulties, and 3 Biggest Mistakes
Antoine Erwes is the founder of Seaweed First, a non-profit think tank focussed on delivering actionable intelligence for an impactful and scalable seaweed industry.
In this episode of The Paxtier Podcast, Antoine reveals all about seaweed industry bottlenecks, data difficulties, and his 3 biggest mistakes.
You can listen now on Spotify, and YouTube.
Find a basic transcript for this episode and all past episodes at: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2212525/episodes/13133297
Where to find Antoine:
https://seaweedfirst.org/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/erwesantoine/
In this episode, we cover:
1:25 Antoine's journey into seaweed and oceans
4:59 Booming and busting in seaweed markets
7:20 Geographies of interest
10:14 Seaweed First's Sustainability Index
12:00 Bringing the right people to the table
13:14 NOAH Regen and coastal zone management
15:48 Collecting data for Seaweed First
17:57 3 biggest failures/mistakes
25:51 Challenges for the seaweed industry
32:48 Favourite books and best bits of advice
Hope you enjoy! Let us know what you think!
🐦Tweets of the week
🔥 What else was hot in algae tech this week?
General
🔥 Eat lower on the seafood chain for vital nutrients, says Harvard professor of nutrition: Here’s what that means (Read more HERE).
🔥BlueInvest and EU4Algae are co-hosting an exclusive e-pitching session for 5 top projects in the algae sector on 11 October (Read more HERE).
Macroalgae
🌱 A startup from Berlin is on the cusp of launching a new plant-based tampon derived from an unexpected source—seaweed (Read more HERE).
🐄 Some interesting updates from down under as 80 wagyu cattle were fed a twice daily ration of red seaweed for 300 days (Read more HERE).
🌱 Florida Atlantic University study finds vibrio in sargassum blob (Read more HERE).
🌱 Researchers lock up carbon by turning seaweed into biocoal (Read more HERE).
💸 SØLKELP North-South Seaweed Cultivation Partnership – to trigger mutual benefits in seaweed cultivation practices (Read more HERE).
🌱 What Scotland can learn from Dutch North Sea innovators (Read more HERE).
♻️ Where shellfish, seaweed and circularity thrive. How one aquaculture farm is bringing regeneration to Puget Sound (Read more HERE).
📝 (Paper) Global principles for restorative aquaculture to foster aquaculture practices that benefit the environment (Read more HERE).
🌱 Perth biotech company turning seaweed into version of plastic (Read more HERE).
🌱 What plastic pollution? these companies are making packaging disappear (Read more HERE).
🌱 Macroalgal extracts to counteract heat stress in dairy (Read more HERE).
🌱 Sea Moss: Everything You Need to Know (Read more HERE).
📰 Forbes México shared Thalasso AS’s circular approach for sustainable sargassum management (Read more HERE).
🌱 Video highlighting the collaboration between University of New England and University of Auckland analysing habitat benefits and impacts of seaweed aquaculture (Read more HERE).
📰 Japanese algae ‘invades Algarve beaches’ (Read more HERE).
Microalgae
⚡Join the Phyconauts - a brand new community for folks working in microalgae/cyanobacteria to share openly, collaborate and communicate! (Read more HERE).
📝 (Paper) The effect of the combined system of hydrodynamic cavitation, ozone, and hydrogen peroxide on chlorophyll a and organic substances removal in the raw water (Read more HERE).
⚡ Spain’s All-gas Project: Pioneering algae-based wastewater treatment and energy production (Read more HERE).
🟢 NASA wants to identify phytoplankton species from space. Here’s why (Read more HERE).
⛵Hundreds of dolphins, sea lions washing up dead or sick on SoCal beaches from toxic algae (Read more HERE).
🟢 With new weather system rolling in, BC salmon farming companies prepare for algal blooms (Read more HERE).
🟢 Can microalgae treat wastewater and be a valuable alternative fish feed ingredient? (Read more HERE).
🟢 Diatom / bacteria symbiosis in the open ocean explored (Read more HERE).
🟢 Cyanobacteria in sustainable agriculture (Read more HERE).
📝 (Paper) The impact of ocean alkalinity enhancement on marine biota offers hope for carbon dioxide removal (Read more HERE).
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That’s all folks!
Thanks again for joining us this week. Hope you have a great day and stay tuned for more algae tech updates soon!
Best,
Peter