💨 Scaling Offshore Seaweed + Wind Farms | Arctic Seaweed
PLUS: A call for technical aquaculture experts and Phycobloom announces completion of seed round.
"We strongly believe farming seaweed with wind farms is the pathway to 8 million tonnes of seaweed" — Matthias Boeing, Strategic Advisor for Arctic Seaweed
⭐ Calling technical aquaculture experts! Join Climate Tech Studio Marble (based in France) as a CTO for an innovative CDR venture: Carbon removal & mineralisation through marine organisms. Background in technical aquaculture scaleup, open ponds, or offshore? Let's talk! Fill out this form and start your journey ⭐
Dear algae technologists, operators and investors - hello and welcome to the Paxtier Report!
To start the email this week, check out this awesome vid posted by Dr Jags Pandhal from The University of Sheffield.
In today’s report…
Markets: 🌊 Zanzibar inclining towards oil and gas exploration - with plan also including expansion of seaweed processing.
Deals: 🤝 Phycobloom announce the completion of seed round.
Movers and Shakers: 💨 Scaling offshore seaweed + wind farms | Arctic Seaweed.
Around the web: 🌎 Producing natural food dyes by leveraging the metabolism of microalgae.
Markets and Investing
✂️Algae Market Snippets
Some big moves in recent weeks…
General
💸 NORDEN acquires part of MASH to research biofuels (Read more HERE).
Macroalgae
🤝 Zanzibar inclining towards oil and gas exploration - with plan also including expansion of seaweed processing (Read more HERE).
💸 Running Tide raised a $54m Series B - "the largest investment in ocean-based carbon removal to date." This is the first time they’ve publicly shared the news. The story features additional details about the first ever carbon removal purchase in the open ocean (Read more HERE).
🛑 State approves bill to ban sale, transport of Caulerpa algae (Read more HERE).
💦 Sargassum impacting St. Croix water supply (Read more HERE).
🍜 SHORE celebrates Great Taste Award for Ramen Broth product (Read more HERE).
🌱 ‘Lumot is life’: UP Visayas, DOST, seaweed firm partner to develop aquaculture feeds (Read more HERE).
⚖️ Claim filed against Crown over seaweed infestation engulfing Aotea (Read more HERE).
🌱 Philippe Cousteau, Jr.'s EarthEcho International collaborates with Youth of Color to build careers in the blue economy (Read more HERE).
🌱 Kelpinor announce first-year harvest and in-house processing of 15 tonnes of seaweed (Read more HERE).
🌱 USAID’s Accelerator Programme showcases innovative entrepreneurs supporting climate resilient approaches (Read more HERE).
💸 Canadian plant-based seafood startup raises $19m for expansion after Whole Foods listing (Read more HERE).
🌊 Idemitsu invests in Hatch Blue and joins Hatch Innovation Services to investigate blue carbon opportunities (Read more HERE).
🌱 Southern Seagreens announce progress with kelp farming initiative (Read more HERE).
🗺️ SEP Hydrographic have completed their latest geophysical survey project with Norfolk Seaweed (Read more HERE).
🌱 Thanet council deals with ‘unusually’ high levels of seaweed covering isle beaches this year (Read more HERE).
🏆 Sea & Flour awarded patent for systems and methods for processing seaweed used in commercial baking (Read more HERE).
Microalgae
1️⃣ Clay Township's algae wastewater plant would be first of its kind in Michigan (Read more HERE).
💸 Phycobloom announce the completion of their seed round (Read more HERE).
👟 Mizuno’s lowest-impact running sneakers made with algae, castor oil (Read more HERE).
⚫ Algae is the new black: Nike sneaker swaps petroleum for sustainable ink (Read more HERE).
🟢 Regulations keep coming, algae keep blooming. Nutrient pollution is a growing problem, and goverment hasn’t solved it (Read more HERE).
🟢 Decerna provide an independent assessment of the Brilliant Planet microalgae carbon capture facility in Morocco (Read more HERE).
🏆 Cornell University plant biologist honoured with DOE Early Career Award (Read more HERE).
🤝 Technip Energies announce collaboration with SOCAR R&D in new project to develop cutting-edge technology for biofuel production using microalgae (Read more HERE).
🟢 PCAARRD eyes enhanced usage of microalgae for aquafeeds in the Philippines (Read more HERE).
🟢 Florida officials are testing new technology that turns algae into fertiliser (Read more HERE).
💸 NASA funds nearly $900,000 in planning awards to minority serving institutions. Algae-enriched guacamole features (Read more HERE).
🔁 Terra Bioindustries builds circular economy with upcycled ‘spent grain sugars’ and proteins. Moves away from algae (Read more HERE).
💨 Scaling Offshore Seaweed + Wind Farms | Arctic Seaweed
Matthias Boeing is a Strategic Advisor for Arctic Seaweed, an awesome company developing disruptive technology to scale the macroalgae industry.
Arctic Seaweed recently entered into an MoU with Simply Blue Group to explore solutions for co-locating seaweed farms among offshore wind farms.
And in this episode of The Paxtier Podcast, Matthias reveals all about growing these two industries together. He also breaks down various challenges facing the space and his biggest mistakes.
You can listen now on Spotify:
and YouTube:
We’ll post an edited transcript for this episode and all past episodes here.
Where to find Matthias:
https://aseaweed.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mboeing/
In this episode, we cover:
0:00 Intro
2:13 Introduction to Matthias and his journey into algae.
6:43 Arctic Seaweed intro and updates.
13:17 About direct seeding.
16:26 The state of the industry and next 5 years.
21:00 Cooperative models.
24:45 Why are we seeing seaweed businesses fail?
26:33 Coupling seaweed with offshore wind farms and Simply Blue Group.
30:17 Failures & mistakes.
38:10 Konsberg Digital and ocean data.
41:26 His past seaweed venture BlueCs & monetising ecosystem services.
47:05 Book recommendations.
Hope you enjoy! Let us know what you think!
🐦Tweets of the week
🔥 What else was hot in algae this week?
General
🤩 The first in person Seaweed Gang meet-up is this weekend (Saturday 12th August) in Hyde Park, London. Open to Phyconauts too! (Read more and say you are coming HERE).
🥘 Why bio-manufacturing is crucial to building lasting eco-friendly food supply in APAC according to Tidetron Bioworks (Read more HERE).
🌊 Mapping ocean health startups in Latin America (Read more HERE).
Macroalgae
🌱 Bridgeport students collect seaweed at dawn to protect clean water (Read more HERE).
🤖 Madanapalle students invent solar-powered robotic seaweed cutter to relieve farmers’ struggles (Read more HERE).
🍔 Tasty, carbon-negative kelp burgers are ‘everything that’s right with the food system’ (Read more HERE).
🌱 Sea urchins struggle with their grip due to climate change: study - how will this affect algae? (Read more HERE).
📝 (Paper) Time to include blue carbon from seaweed in voluntary carbon removal certification (Read more HERE).
👩🍳 Top chefs have fallen for gamtae, a rare and ravishing seaweed (Read more HERE).
🌱 US entrepreneurship alumna makes headlines with sustainable tech using useful components from marine debris to support various industries (Read more HERE).
📋 Seaweed export policy and its improvement in the context of Indonesia’s post- national economic recovery pandemic (Read more HERE).
🏖️ From Brazil with love: A seaside, seaweed and a fashtech innovator (Read more HERE).
🏴 Alaska harvesters and scientists share concern over black seaweed (Read more HERE).
🌱 New oil and gas licences threaten protected ocean habitats (Read more HERE).
📖 Seaweed and Africa: untapped potential and story of Oscar Ikinya, The tale of a survivor seeking to save the planet (Read more HERE).
📣 Umaro Foods presented their offshore design rig at the Ocean Visions UN Ocean Decade Innovations Exchange! (Read more HERE).
🎤 Sea Grown founder talks about his plans and ambitions for the company on the Two IPs In A Pod podcast (Read more HERE).
Microalgae
🤖 Using AI to tackle harmful algal blooms, updates from Blue Lion Labs and microalgae early warning systems (Read more HERE).
💧 Scientist reveals what you actually ingest when you swallow seawater (Read more HERE).
🟢 High-efficiency capture and utilization of CO2 from flue gas using algae-based amino acid salt solution (Read more HERE).
🔵 Producing natural food dyes by leveraging the metabolism of microalgae (Read more HERE).
📝 (Paper) Aerosolization flux, bio-products, and dispersal capacities in the freshwater microalga Limnomonas gaiensis (Chlorophyceae) (Read more HERE).
🟢 Improved theory of ocean iron cycle resolves modelling issues (Read more HERE).
🏗️ Bio-based architectural components could fixate carbon dioxide (Read more HERE).
🗣 Aliga interviewed by the Society of Chemical industry on their progress to optimal microalgae farming (Read more HERE).
🟢 The SEALIVE project is continuing its mission to reduce plastic pollution and boost uptake of biomaterials (Read more HERE).
💼 Jobs
⭐ Calling technical aquaculture experts! Join Climate Tech Studio Marble (based in France) as a CTO for an innovative CDR venture: Carbon removal & mineralisation through marine organisms. Background in scaleup, open ponds, or offshore aquaculture? Let's talk! Fill out this form and start your journey ⭐
🌊 Macro Oceans and Industrial Plankton are hiring scientists! Check out the positions at Paxtier's algae job board 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