The seaweed industry has seen $375 million worth of transactions since 2019

Three new reports for 2023 look at the current state of the global seaweed industry, its future potential and the health benefits of eating seaweed.

Phyconomy uses public data to track the emerging seaweed economy, and in its State of the Industry 2023 report, seaweed industry tracker Phyconomy found that over $375 million in equity investments have been disclosed over the past three years.

The disclosed figures are likely to represent only a small fraction of total investment in the sector, as detailed financial information is not available for many of the more than 1,200 companies listed in the Phyconomy database, and not all investors or companies receiving investments disclose the amount invested, excluding investments with debt or their own money.

Asia remains the dominant player in the seaweed industry, accounting for more than 95 percent of global farmed seaweed production, and more seaweed companies were founded in Europe in 2022 than anywhere else in the world. In North America, fewer start-ups received larger amounts of funding, while those in Australia and New Zealand received smaller amounts.

Among them, 21 were invested in downstream processing projects, 13 were invested in vertical integration projects and 7 were invested in nurturing entrepreneurship projects. Since 2020, 83% of tracked investments have been in bio-refining, using asparagine to reduce methane in livestock, food applications and bioplastics projects.

The report warns that production in major Asian countries is declining, requiring new markets, pressure to adapt to climate change and greater automation.

Global interest in seaweed as a contributor to climate change mitigation is growing rapidly, but the field remains controversial and the report identifies bottlenecks to development, including over-regulation, licensing, markets, start-up costs, strain breeding, social licensing, processing and financing, although some positive developments are noted in all areas.

For example, the European Union has launched an initiative to promote algae farming, achieved innovations in the laboratory propagation of seaweed, and developed methods for automated seaweed seed string deployment.

The profitability of seaweed farming is far from guaranteed and the market is currently underdeveloped, the report found. Labour costs in Europe and the US are higher than in Asia, limiting the potential export of seaweed from those continents to high-value food, cosmetics and nutritional products.

There are further problems in the types of seaweed required by the market. There is mismatch between supply and demand for seaweed varieties, such as Palmaria palmata, wakame, seaweed and Ulva, which are the biggest demands of food companies, but the main varieties of seaweed farmers are Saccharina latissima. Kelp and Alaria esculenta.

Hatch Innovation Services(" Hatch ") recently launched its own Seaweed Insights, a practical guide to seaweed farming around the world that aims to spot opportunities in the industry and clarify investment potential.

The guide describes how major commercial seaweed varieties are farmed and presents insights from extensive field investigations, including interviews with more than 100 farmers, processors, suppliers and researchers in Asia.

Hatch has also been conducting market analysis of new seaweed products and applications that will be released by the end of the first quarter of 2023.