India seaweed biotech start-up raises $18.5m

Tata Capital Innovations Fund and Aqua-Spark, a Dutch investment fund focused on the global aquaculture industry, also invested. They were joined by Silverstrand Capital, a Singapore-based family office that has invested in Aqua-Spark and operates a biodiversity accelerator.

Sea6 was founded in 2010 to develop sustainable, large-scale and mechanised marine agriculture and related products. It is recognised as a pioneer in this field, having developed an integrated approach to the cultivation and use of red seagrass, a promising sustainable resource.

The company uses satellite imagery to identify locations with the right conditions for its farms and claims to have adapted its cultivation technology to deep-water and adverse-weather conditions. It can realise six harvests a year under the right conditions. Part of the farming operations are conducted in Indonesia.

Products include biostimulants for increasing resistance to disease and stress in agriculture and shrimp farming, as well as animal feed and vegetable fibre. Various bioplastics, including biodegradable polymers, and biofuels based on red seaweed are also in development.

“Sea6 Energy convinced us with its integrated business model,” Markus Solibieda, a managing director of BASF Venture Capital, said in a statement.

“With its extensive experience in the field of biotechnology, the team has created very good upstream conditions for cultivating red seaweed as biomass on a large scale while also demonstrating success downstream through its biorefinery. This opens up opportunities for transitioning traditionally crude-dependent industries such as the chemical industry to renewable feedstocks.”

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• Topics
• South Asia
• Technology
• Cleantech
• Early-stage
• India
• Tata Capital
• Agriculture