314 Sowmya Balendiran - How to turn seaweed farming into an industry? Start by farming 1000 football fields of tropical seaweed in Indonesia

A conversation with Sowmya Balendiran, co-founder and chief business officer at Sea6 Energy, about regenerative aquaculture, how to restore the oceans and use them more to reduce the pressure on land systems, get fossil fuel use down drastically, like in fertiliser, plastics, and in food of course. 

Sowmya is one of the pioneers who helped create the first signs of a tropical seaweed industry. What do you do if you have to invent both sides of the business? How do you grow seaweed industrially at scale and price points that make sense? And how do you process seaweed into products that sell for an interesting enough margin?

Someone will soon mention seaweed. It sounds magical, some species grow super fast, you can harvest them year-round, they don’t need any inputs, don’t need land but sea, which we have a lot of, etc. So, why hasn’t seaweed taken over the world yet? What is needed to industrially farm tropical seaweed? Industrial might sound like what we don’t want, but in tropical seaweed, most work is done by hand, standing knee-deep or neck-deep in the water. We can agree that that won’t scale and get us to a seaweed industry that can replace large amounts of fossil fuels.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:19

Seaweed seaweed as soon as you mention regenerative aquaculture or how can we restore the oceans and use them more to reduce the pressure on land systems, get fossil fuel use down dramatically, like in fertilizers, plastics, in food, of course, some of them mention seaweed. They sound magical. Some species grow super fast, you can harvest them year round, they don't need any inputs and you don't need any land but sea, which we have a lot of, etc. Etc. So what has happened? Why hasn't seaweed taken over the world yet? What is needed to industrially farm tropical seaweeds? In this case, that might not sound what we want, but tropical seaweed is mostly farmed currently by hand, standing knee deep or neck deep in water, and I think we can agree that that won't scale and get us a seaweed industry that can replace large amounts of fossil fuels. Today we talk with one of the pioneers who has helped create the first science of a tropical seaweed industry. What do you do if you have to invent both sides of the business how to grow seaweed industrially at scale at price points that make sense, and how do you process seaweeds into products that sell for an interesting enough margin? Get ready for literally a deep dive into the seaweed space, Take a deep breath and another one. Every second breath we take comes from the oceans and over half of the fish we eat is farmed. That's why we dedicate a series to explore the potential of regeneration.

Speaker 1: 1:47

Underwater Oceans and other water bodies cover most of our planet and have stored most of the excess heat so far and, at the same time, have some of the best opportunities to produce healthy food, mostly protein, store carbon, create materials, fuel, biosimulants and much, much more Plus, create a lot of jobs in coastal communities. We have largely ignored the water-based farming, aquaculture industry in this podcast until now. In these conversations, we explore why aquaculture is so important for the future of our planet. If we get this wrong, we have a serious problem. What are the risks and challenges with feed, the reliance on soy pests yes, there are pests underwater antibiotics, microplastics, etc. What does it mean when you apply regenerative principles to aquaculture? What can soil-based agriculture learn from aquaculture and visa versa? And what should investors really know about water-based farming and what the potential is of regenerative aquaculture?

Speaker 1: 2:43

A series of interviews with the people putting money to work, entrepreneurs and investors in this crucial and often overlooked sector. We're grateful for the support of the Nest family office in order to make this series. The Nest is a family office dedicated to building a more resilient food system through supporting natural solutions and innovative technologies that change the way we produce food. You can find out more on thenestfocom or in the links below. Welcome to another episode Today with the co-founder and chief business officer at C6 Energy, bringing mechanized ocean farming into tropical seaweed farming. Welcome, Somya.

Speaker 2: 3:31

Thanks, Koen, for having me here. I'm very excited to be part of this conversation.

Speaker 1: 3:36

Absolutely, and this is the second or third, depending a bit on how we release it, but it's definitely one of the earlier ones in our regenerative oceans and aquaculture series. So I'm very happy to unpack seaweed and, of course, many other things, but unpack seaweed with you because I think it's one of the things people think about immediately when they think, oh yeah, oceans and regeneration. There's a whole world there. But oh, seaweed makes so much sense and I think we've seen a lot of excitement around it in the global north. So much sense and I think we've seen a lot of excitement around it in the global north.

Speaker 1: 4:10

Some failed attempts and a lot of interest. How do we do this at scale? And it seems you have figured out a big piece of the puzzle, or maybe the whole puzzle there, so I'm curious to unpack that with you. But to start with a personal question we always like to ask first why are you doing what you're doing and how did you end up spending most of your in this case, awake hours on not soil, which is our usual starting point, but seaweed and ocean farming? How did that happen?

Speaker 2: 4:33

Yeah, that's a very interesting question. Perhaps I could even answer that for two full days, but we can start with something.

Speaker 1: 4:40

This is a free-flowing podcast format. We have time.

Speaker 2: 4:43

Yeah, thanks. So it was not a planned enterprise at all, to be very frank, right. So how it started was a lot of I would say, a lot of coincidences, serendipities, but everything came together with passion and a team really working together. So it's all started in our final year of college, um, so it was pretty, uh, a very interesting conversation came up. So most of us during our final year of graduation uh, we had just competed in a competition with MIT and became the first Indian team to win a silver medal in that competition. So when that whole thing happened, we got together as a team and at the end of that episode, one of the professors in the college came and asked us that you know, listen, guys, you guys seem to be working well together as a team. You have another year before you graduate. Would you like to continue working as a team, but this time on a different problem, right? Something which is also more impactful to the entire world and our country? It is a very, very open-ended thing that he asked us right at that point.

Speaker 1: 5:55

And what did you win the medal with? Because he basically implied that what you did until then wasn't super impactful.

Speaker 2: 6:04

Not really. I mean where it was. And I do agree to a large part, because many times when you do lab experiments you're not really focused on how many people is this really going to impact, right? You're more like okay, I need to find this answer, and after I find the answer, who's going to use it, where it's going to be impacting? I mean that kind of metric, definitely not at the age of 20. At least, we were not thinking of it at the age of 20 at that point.

Speaker 2: 6:37

So this was a much more wider question which was being posed and was quite challenging. And we all had a year to go and typically in the final year of college apart from doing some projects, my colleagues Ver and I had just graduated I had another year of college. Apart from doing some projects, my colleagues Ver and I had just graduated I had another year of research associateship to do. So we said, sure, sounds like an interesting problem. What could this problem be? And I'm not sure if you or any of the viewers here remember this was in 2010. And the peak of the conversation at that time was, you know, biofuels Biofuels from sugarcane, biofuels from Jatropha, from microalgae.

Speaker 1: 7:05

Jatropha. I remember that that plant.

Speaker 2: 7:08

Yeah, with the nuts.

Speaker 2: 7:10

And microalgae. Billions and billions of dollars went into that. So it was a point where I think the crude oil went beyond 120, 130 per barrel. I think everybody wanted to look at biofuel as a potential option and we, coming from India, you know we were looking at all of these solutions. It hits you very differently, right? Because whether it's sugarcane or Jatropha or any of these solutions, they would all need a lot of land to grow and, coming from a country where you don't have too much land and a lot of people, you need to really focus on using that land to feed your people, not really fuel your people, right? So it was a pretty easy answer for us saying that whatever solution is, that solution is not going to work in our country. Um, so is there a solution at all? And that was an interesting question. We let's see if there is an interesting solution for this. If it is, then let's work on it.

Speaker 2: 8:06

So it literally started like that. So the professor Shree, who is also a chairman, and then my co-founders, shailaja and Nelson, along with about five of us, basically started working on this project with two other colleagues Hemant, saish, garik. They were all initial team members, so we all started working on it as one team, and we looked at microalgae because microalgae was a hot topic at that point. It didn't need land, it didn't need fresh water, so it sounded like a pretty interesting option to look at. So we spent about a year doing that and then we were all biotechnologists also engineering graduates, engineers trained in biotechnology right, also engineering graduates, engineers trained in biotechnology. We kind of quickly realized that this may not be a very scalable solution for a country like India and we could not understand how we could make that whole math work, economics work.

Speaker 1: 9:05

So just to walk people through microalgae, what should they imagine as a microalgae production site or farm, like if they? This is an audio medium, but try to be visual like what, what? What should people look at and why is not working, or shouldn't it? Or doesn't it work in in a country like india?

Speaker 2: 9:16

so I would like to put a caveat, saying that our thesis is 14 years old. We've not looked at it in the last 14 years, but at least least back then. For us it was like there was a lot of containment issues. And microalgae is these green things you see on top of your pound. Many times that's microalgae. So these are unicellular organisms. So containing them you just can't keep them growing everywhere. There's something of photosynthetic efficiencies which are not high enough for us and simply, you know, the amount of microalgae produced in the world which was cultivated was hardly anything right, and the amount of water you need to get one kg of microalgae, which is, let's say, one kg of seaweed. It was just not adding up for us, so for us it didn't make sense.

Speaker 1: 10:01

And all the tubes and all the ponds, you still need a lot of infrastructure.

Speaker 2: 10:04

Yeah, a lot of electricity energy infrastructure.

Speaker 1: 10:10

I think Exxon did some big investments like the oil major and quietly ended most of it last year I think, or two years ago.

Speaker 2: 10:17

A lot of companies invested MIT, green Fuels, craig Wenders. There's a whole bunch of people I know a lot of people did go down the path. I don't track any of them. I do not know what the status is, so that's something I can't really comment on. Um and, like I said, my knowledge is also pretty ancient. It's 14 years is a long time.

Speaker 2: 10:38

Things could have changed right now, but at that point our thesis was this would not work for a country like us. So literally all of us were ready to go our own ways, take up jobs or do PhDs. So most of us had our PhD admits, job offers available, so we just wanted to walk a different ways. At that time, suddenly a colleague of ours a friend a colleague of ours he just came back with a newspaper in his hand saying that hey guys, listen, all the problems we've been trying to solve containment issues, scale, economics of how this can be worked looks like there's something called a seaweed which has already solved a lot of the problems that we have been trying to look at. So then, when we all started looking at it, it was super, super, super interesting because a lot of issues we spent a year trying to solve seaweeds had already solved it. There was already thousands of tons of seaweed being grown, globally cultivated. There was practice established, so it seemed a lot more global option.

Speaker 2: 11:41

What was missing? There was technology really to scale that into an industrial process. It was very. You know I keep doing this comparison on how ag was 10,000 years ago. You know I can only farm the backyard of my house. I'll take a shower, take a small area, plant some seeds and wait for six months and do the harvest. It's literally like that, at least in Southeast Asia. It's a very, very laborious, very small scale practice which is being done. So the potential of the biomass to really be able to cultivate it at scale.

Speaker 2: 12:20

Because when you're talking about solving solutions like plastics, biofuels, fertilizers, bioswales they are we talk about millions of tons. You can't do that with traditional hand shovel methods. So we realized that we can really add value there, we can change something there. Um, it was a very, uh, audacious goal. Many people did not even believe or did not even understand at that point of time what it meant. The common comment we used to get is you know, hey, we're working on seaweed, means, ah, the Nuri seaweed, the sushi seaweed. That was pretty much the understanding at that point. But from there to now, I think the industry has made a lot of progress. We have also made a lot of progress and at a point where we can say you know that we are much, much closer on realizing the large potential of seaweeds. So that's how we got started.

Speaker 1: 13:11

Um, very long answer, sorry about that no, no, super fascinating and and um, safe to say that usually the answers to that first question are long indeed, because many people they don't walk walk a straight line to whatever profession they're in now or whatever company they've founded. And what would you say to people say because that conclusion of what's missing is mechanization or technology to get it to an industrial process? I don't think it's new, in a sense, that conclusion people 20 years ago must have also drawn like why seems it to be happening now? Like what's different compared to 20, 30 years ago, when maybe there was also an oil crisis and people looked at macroalgae like the large ones that you are growing, like what's the difference in this case?

Speaker 2: 14:30

See, in my view, the biggest difference I see when we started in this case. See, in my view, the biggest difference I see when we started in this space, let's say 14 years ago and now. Two things One is the amount of awareness, technology coming into play, companies coming into play Both of them have changed drastically. Right, like I said, in 2010, the only thing people knew about seaweed was it goes on a sushi and roll. But today you have I mean, we were just starting to talk about it right, we have conferences, we have people, we have communities, we have a lot of interested parties looking at how this can actually bring in a lot of change and address climate change as well.

Speaker 2: 15:11

And it's not just people in communities. I think even the governments are starting to look at it and rally around it as well. So I think that's a huge paradigm shift which has happened over the years, and companies like us and there are many other companies also who have started fixing the biggest missing pieces and issues. So what was an extremely labor-intensive, very, very, very low productivity, now we can look at it as an industry which can have much higher productivity, very, very efficiently. And that happens when you have the right tools and technologies coming to play. Also a lot of funding over a period of time that has also evolved Products markets. So I see a lot, of, a lot of development and changes in the last 14 years.

Speaker 1: 15:53

And to talk about missing pieces. Let's start with with the technology piece. What did, what was your conclusion? What was needed after your, let's say, initial excitement about seaweed? This is this fixed a lot of the issues we identified with with microalgae, but it also raises questions of of what needs to be done. What are the puzzle pieces missing, like what's the next step? What do you do after your initial like okay, we're not going to do PhDs, we're not going to take jobs, we're actually going to do this or we're going to attempt this. Whatever this at that point meant, probably you didn't have a very clear idea, and maybe that was also luckily, otherwise you would never have started. What was the next step after the excitement?

Speaker 2: 16:34

So, like I said, we had engineering and biotechnology background, so we split up as two parts in the company. One part was saying that, listen, there's a lot of technology which needs to be invented and made on the upstream. How do you grow the seaweed so that you can talk about cultivating multiple hundreds and thousands of hectares on the sea? Because that technology was absolutely missing. We've done agriculture so successfully and land Three fourths of our world is oceans and we have no idea to grow anything on that. So far, I mean, I can't say no idea, but very limited idea, let's put it that way.

Speaker 1: 17:10

I mean I can't say no idea, but very limited idea. Let's put it that way yeah, the tractors, the combines, the mechanization. Literally it's hand plow hand plow. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 17:19

So none of that existed right, and especially for tropical seaweeds it was even worse. At least for some temperate water seaweeds in China or Japan they were a lot more progressive in terms of cultivation, but in tropical seaweeds none of that literally was even present. So all of that had to be pissed. So we said we put together a team called the Ocean Engineering which was only focusing on the upstream, on how do you build technologies to scale seaweed cultivation, and then the other part of the company. We said, okay, let's assume these guys are going to be wildly successful and generate tons and tons of C6.

Speaker 1: 17:53

What do we do with it?

Speaker 2: 17:55

What are you going to do with that? Because nobody else was solving this problem for us. So C6 was in a very peculiar place where you have to plug both the ends of the pipe. If you leave one, you're not going to get anywhere in that process. So then we worked on the bioconversion. So we spent a lot of time initially establishing the proof of concept on how you can make crude oil from seaweed, but then, once that proof of concept was established, we knew that to even remotely have a pilot facility for that, you're still talking about a large amount of biomass farms, farms, investments.

Speaker 2: 18:30

So let's start looking at other areas which can slowly scale up to fuel. And you see, we're based in India and Indonesia. Right, it's not like there's tons and tons of VC money saying that, hey guys, go ahead and take a moonshot idea, we will fund you, you don't have to make a single penny for the next 15 years and I will cover your costs. We don't play in that ecosystem, unfortunately. So even though when we had a moonshot, we had to say, okay, the moonshot is definitely possible, but to keep us afloat in survival, what are the other product lines that we can start looking at? So we started looking at ag. Ag was one of the largest segments we thought we could start with and we developed products. We developed biostemlins, fertilizer, nutrient use efficiency products for that A whole range of products, basically Patented products and then we started selling them globally in about 2015,.

Speaker 2: 19:27

Five, six years after we started the company is basically when we made the first commercialization of our product and then we started looking at where it can be used in foods, where it can be used in feed. So each of that vertical kept opening up. So we always worked in a way where you take up a sector or an area, you make sure you understand that you launch a product, then you kind of move forward, move forward, move forward. So today we have our downstream processes which works on food, feed, chemicals and fuels and ag. About four divisions is what we call it. So both of them are working and that's how we started.

Speaker 2: 20:01

We said these are the two sets of problems. Let's just split ourselves and move forward. And we kept growing over a period of time. What we didn't have back then, many of it we do have right now. So today we have something equivalent because the C combine, which is like a tractor on the land. We have an entire biology division which looks at you know how do you look at seaweed biology to make it grow more efficiently. We have an entire production team which works on C farms, and when you have a multiple hectare farm on the sea, you actually land up having a separate production group as well which only focuses on production and not on R&D. And in the downstream, we have multiple family of patents products. So that's the part of missing pieces we have contributed. There are definitely some more missing pieces which needs to be addressed. We're nowhere close to having solved everything but yeah, over the period there's been a massive change in how we can actually farm and make products out of it.

Speaker 1: 21:01

And did it in that process? Did it always combine, of course, with the growing and or was like how did that, those two sides of the business the growing side, fixing those issues and challenges and opportunities, and the, let's say, processing and selling side did it always grow in unity? Or were there also challenges, like suddenly we had way more stuff to sell or actually we needed way more things because we have customers that want biosimilants and fertilizer alternatives? I think they started to take off exactly in your period as well. And how was that managing? Because you did have to like chicken and egg. You had to do both basically, which we'll get to the investor side, because pitching that, I think was easy at all. But how was that from internal? Uh, how was the dance?

Speaker 2: 21:51

no, very, very good question. So we knew this is something early on, right? So what we were blessed with is we worked on a seaweed which was already produced at a few hundreds of tons.

Speaker 2: 22:05

So you could buy so we did not work with the seaweed which we had to grow ourselves and then make products out of it. So what we said was okay, listen, this is a seaweed we're fixing on for abcd reasons, one of the reasons being it's also available to buy off the market today and make my downstream products. Later on, when I have my farms, I can always plug it back in, but I don't have to wait for my farms to be up and running to have a product or a factory or a market. So that was a very conscious choice that we did upfront. We didn't work on any specific species which was not commercially available, so that saved us a lot of time and effort. Otherwise, we would not have been able to start a business until like last year, um, which would have been not not at all sustainable and that brings another cost perspective, of course, with you, because you're specifically so.

Speaker 1: 22:58

Did you already make it work like these products that you develop? Did they make already sense from a margin perspective, even though you had to buy the seaweed, or was it? Is it dependent, or was it dependent on your farms coming online and your technology and mechanization coming online?

Speaker 2: 23:11

Absolutely. We always develop products which make sense at that particular price point.

Speaker 1: 23:16

So for us, which is amazing from a chicken and like from a development perspective, that that was apparently not waiting in the market to happen but at least possible without any. At least innovation on the production side, of course. On the transformation and sales side a lot of innovation, but that at least fixed one of the two sides of the coin.

Speaker 2: 23:38

So our initial products were completely non-dependent on that, moving forward as we go down. So we call that a graph that we have, which we typically show. You know, high value products are your pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals and maybe your biostimulants. Right when you drop below that, you become bulk add inputs and feed inputs. Below that is your bioplastics, below that is your chemicals and way below that is your fuels.

Speaker 1: 24:02

Which you started with, so you need to keep dropping.

Speaker 2: 24:05

So you start with where you don't need a drastic drop, but then, as you keep dropping the price and the scale keeps increasing larger and larger, you open up the other opportunities. That has always been our understanding. I mean, this is a graph we made, I don't know 10 years ago. We said, listen, this is a price point for this product. This is a price point for this product. And we said, listen, this is a price point for this product.

Speaker 2: 24:27

This is a price point for this product and that's how the company has evolved. You know every point. We've made sure that we are not dependent on a future miracle. You need to be able to make something work today, but you can plan for the future miracle and work on it, but don't base your business on that. So yeah, at least for us, that's always how we've done it.

Speaker 1: 24:44

And how did you? Was that exactly how you pitched it to investors? Like, was it the investor side when you pitched mostly, look, we're developing a product based on stuff we can buy and then we will develop farms over time, but that might take X, so let's focus the investment case. How did you pitch that investment case? Because I think many people are in that position where they have to invent two sides of a marketplace basically, and usually investors at some point say, yeah, that's too complicated and too many layers and too much complexity. How did you present this to investors in the early days?

Speaker 2: 25:17

We've had multiple investors say this looks way too complex. I think we've heard that quite a few times. But for us, and also people who've got on board with us, see the way we have always sliced and diced. The problem is there is multiple opportunities with semen, there is no doubt. But we can do it one step at a time.

Speaker 2: 25:42

So when we started, you know we could have said, oh, I'll work on bioplastics as well as food as well, and feed as well and ag as well. Let me have like a hundred people R&D team working on all of it at the same phase. No, we don't do things like that. We said, okay, ag is going to be the majority. There will be research in the other products, but a lot less focused. So then you're focused on what you need to make happen immediately.

Speaker 2: 26:05

At the same time, you're not taking away your bets on the future, but at every point of time you're very clear what your next three year plan is. Which are the products? Which is going to make sense, which is going to come out, which is going to be revenue generating, which of them are going to be an R&D pipeline? And I think that's the only way which makes sense to us and everybody else on how do you prioritize? Where do you use your money? Because if I say I'm going to take $10 from somebody and I'm going to put $1 in 10 bets versus six in one and four in another three, I think everybody knows the second option is a much better one. You have a much better chances of winning where you're consolidating rather than just spreading and praying. So that's probably what we understood and we've been working on.

Speaker 1: 26:54

And then on the mechanization and technology piece how did that like working on? Okay, how do you get this to multiple square kilometers to start with, and how do you? Let's actually take a step back and let's go there, and then we'll try to make it visual how that looks like. I think many people don't have the references to even imagine what a seaweed, a mechanized seaweed or industrial scale seaweed farm looks like. But you mentioned it took quite a while to get there, to a point where you started producing significantly, let's say, from your farms. Why is the C combine which of course is a great name so important in that? Describe what it is, what it does and why it's such a potential game changer in this industry.

Speaker 2: 27:39

So for us I know C combine is probably the most known thing about C6 and everybody kind of associates C6 with C-Combine. But actually C-Combine is one part of a technology that's not the entire technology at all. There's multiple more layers that we have. So C-Combine is like our ocean platform. Right, it's like even equivalent to, let's say, a barge on the ocean next to an oil ring. Like even equivalent with, let's say, a barge on the ocean next to an oil rig that houses multiple equipments which can be used in processing, seeding, harvesting and everything else. Now I can have a barge on the sea or on the land or anywhere else that I want, based on what farming conditions I'm doing. Uh, sea combine is a great piece of technology for us because that truly enabled us to see how offshore seaweed can be done where you don't need people standing and doing stuff in, like when we need deep water or neck high water, how you can really push the envelope on going to deeper farming areas and how you can bring in those kind of technologies and accessible areas, more accessible areas for farming to happen.

Speaker 2: 28:46

But there's a lot more technology development which has happened, the amount of technology development which has gone into seeding these farms, harvesting these farms? How do you transport across in that place? What is the processing technology that's being used? How do you take the seaweeds out? And then what do you do to make it into your final products? How do you make it into intermediates? There's a whole range. How do you do monitoring, whether it is your drone monitoring, whether it's your weather monitoring, then your seaweed biology? There is an exorbitant amount of technology, information and research.

Speaker 2: 29:26

That wasn't there, that wasn't there, that did not exist right, and all of this piece had to be created in-house wow, and just for our information, like how deep, like to to.

Speaker 1: 29:40

Of course I'll put links below, but just to imagine. Okay, what does a square kilometer seaweed farm look like? Is it long lines is? Is it nets? How deep is it? How big is the seaweed? How does this work? Let's say in practice, just for us. Let's say we take a dive into it. What do we see?

Speaker 2: 29:55

One square kilometer, I think what's the easiest way to explain this. A square kilometer is roughly about a hundred hectares of farm, a hundred hectares, um, and I think a hundred each hectare. Again, maybe it's a soccer field.

Speaker 1: 30:16

Yeah, it's more or less a soccer field, more or less so big, so you have a hundred together, approximately, right, uh, so that's.

Speaker 2: 30:25

That's the size of one square kilometer farm when you talk about it.

Speaker 1: 30:30

And then, when do we see in the water, when we, when we look at it, when you arrive on uh, with a boat or with a floating device, what do you, what do you see? And what's happening on on the farm?

Speaker 2: 30:42

I'm just going to double check my football field. One second Soccer field is just less than a hectare, perfect, yeah, it's a soccer field. I don't want to put out any numbers which are not accurate. Yeah, so I think it's about 100 soccer fields is about a right example. So when you look at it actually when you look, when you stand at one edge of your field there's no way you can even see the other corner. The only way to do it is so edge of your field, there's no way you can even see the other corner. The only way to do it is so we actually have to send drones up to take a shot of the entire farm, and sometimes even a single drone can't capture the whole thing. You need to go really high up to do that. Um, how it looks.

Speaker 2: 31:16

So there are multiple ways of farming. There are lines, there are net tubes, there's, uh, different ways of attachments of seaweed that you can do, um, and then these are basically attached to a larger structure which is then anchored at a specific point on the floor of the ocean bed. So that's how a farm looks. So the closest comparison. So there are some pictures which people can look at. They probably look at C6 Energy. They can type in look at C6 Energy Farm in Indonesia, the one-square-kilometer farm. They should be able to get a lot of pictures. But it's more or less like you know in ag. Maybe if you go to Canada people do square miles of farming, so that could be another picture and these are seaweed that grow down, so you have these waving beds of.

Speaker 1: 32:06

Is it like? What size is the seaweed you're growing?

Speaker 2: 32:08

just to have an understanding of the that's a very good question, because I think for many of the North American listeners, European listeners, it means kelp, right, which grows like four or five meters deep into the water. So we actually work on tropical seaweeds which does not even grow beyond one foot maximum one, one and a half feet and it's at the surface, just below the surface of the water, so it does not grow deep down or up. It's just about a foot, a foot and a half, just about a meter below the surface of the ocean. So that way you're only using that part of the ocean. The below is all free're only using that part of the ocean. The below is all free. You're not interfering with anything anywhere.

Speaker 2: 32:53

And the other beauty of tropical seaweeds is that you can cultivate and harvest throughout the year, because the temperature is pretty much the same throughout the year. We have a plus or minus two or three degrees. So, unlike your culture temperate water seaweeds where you can only harvest once or twice in a year, we actually plant and we can do it every day for the whole year. So your efficiencies, the scale at which you can produce, is a lot more optimized compared to the temperate water seaweeds. So that was actually one of the big reasons why we chose to farm using tropical seaweeds. So that was actually one of the big reasons why we chose to farm using tropical seaweeds as well. So you'll see these tiny patches like one hectare patches spread over multiple areas, because you can't just have your farms. A one square kilometer farm does not mean it's completely filled with seaweed farm. There's ways for the boats and harvest areas and a whole bunch of other things, but you'll see multiple patches of one hectare farms laid out across.

Speaker 2: 33:49

So yeah, I think that's how I would put it together.

Speaker 1: 33:53

And what is the impact on the rest of the ocean column?

Speaker 2: 33:58

let's say, this is such an important question to ask, right? So the biggest and the most critical answer I say this is taking a seaweed species which has been growing locally or native is a very crucial part. So as long as you're using locally grown species, then you're not modifying that flora and fauna, at least you're not bringing something invasive and putting it somewhere else where it's not supposed to be so. In indonesia itself, where we're operating in indonesia, philippines and malaysia there's been a history of seaweed cultivation for multiple decades, and these three countries they're actually called the coral triangle, which is also has a rich, abundant of coral life out there, and they've been farming for more than four decades today, and that that's your proof that you know. Seaweeds synergistically work with the ecosystem pretty well, because that's a native species there. It's actually there. The other advantage of the seaweeds that we work with is they don't have any air pockets, which means they can't float and go away anywhere In case they get cut off. They do go to the bottom and once you go below your 10 or 15 meters, there is no sunlight, so you eventually die. There is no way of you going and staying in another place and growing there and doing any kind of such stuff. So that's another advantage of the CV that we work with.

Speaker 2: 35:22

But apart from this, we've also worked with agencies and not just us.

Speaker 2: 35:26

There are other governmental agencies, there are third-party agencies which have done surveys on how you do these ecosystems together.

Speaker 2: 35:34

In fact it is uh, quite known if you go to any seaweed farms so we have our farms sometimes we see a lot of fishermen coming near our farms to do the fishing because they know this fish is like seaweed. So you suddenly, when you have a seaweed farm, you line up with more fish as well and we have this term which we use, which is called as a fish tax. Right, part of your seaweed is going to be eaten by the fish, but then you just call it the fish tax and you'll have your seaweed farmers coming up as you actually land up, building a nice ecosystem. There is a lot of reports being reported on it. We've done our own surveys. We've also worked with third-party agencies to establish both the socioeconomic benefit and also the environmental risks and benefits, what needs to be done. So that has been studied quite well and mostly for us. If you're using a species which has been grown and cultivated and has a use of cultivation for a very, very long time time.

Speaker 1: 36:26

That takes away most of your risk to start with yeah, maybe not even not all, because of course nobody has done it at that scale.

Speaker 1: 36:34

So I think there's a, um, a potential. I have no idea how big the risk, but I really, because of course it's not been done at the mechanized scale that you're doing it, but it's been done on a smaller but with many smallholder farmers, basically scale and to see what the effect is on the ecosystem, and but it's I remember the fish stacks from a presentation you you gave somewhere and um, and also I mean it's been well, well known like, how are these seas where you operate? Are they in a degraded state? Are they in a, um, a very healthy state? Like what's the, the moment you not intervene, but your moment you get, you get active? How would you describe, let's say, the, the, the lay of the land or the lay of the sea where you, where you intervene, and how is then the effect of having a square kilometer of uh, of life back in there as well? Or seaweed planted, of course not naturally, grown out of nothing, but still there's more life, more, more energy, let's say, in the system at that point?

Speaker 2: 38:00

So that is a big question, a very important but a very, very big question, and there are multiple ways you can do it. See, there's obviously, there are parameters that you can check to see that if seaweed will grow in a potential area and we've done it we have ideas on what kind of data to collect, what monitoring you need to be able to pick something which is most likely to succeed. Pick something which is most likely to succeed. But, having said that, unless until you actually grow a piece of seaweed at a place for a certain while, there is no way to guarantee that it's going to grow very well. So ultimately, it is about putting out plots, waiting for a few months or seasons to make sure that is a potentially good growing season area before you actually start investing a lot into that particular area.

Speaker 2: 38:47

And we've had burn finger experiences right when we started. You know, okay, I like this site. You know I have an airport nearby, I have an industrial estate nearby, so this is a site I'm going to grow seaweed. And then you find out you know what Seaweed doesn't like this place so much so it's not what you want. So there's like this place so much so it's not what you want. So there are a lot of things to consider when you pick a site. And I keep saying this you know anybody who wants to start a seaweed farm. When they ask us, you know what you think we need to be looking at is you look at all multiple list of parameters if you can share with them and tell them about, but ultimately you've got to grow your seaweed for a few seasons, for some time, in that site before you do any considerable amount of investments on it is that changing with the climate?

Speaker 1: 39:28

is that like, is it getting more difficult to predict? Like a few seasons might be okay and then, or is that? Hasn't that hit because we see growing seasons, like in ag, changing completely, like months earlier, months later, extreme weather left and right. How is that in in tropical ocean farming?

Speaker 2: 39:44

so so far for us, because we're in the tropics, close to the equator, most of the year I mean, there's not much seasonality as such, right, and we've not faced that kind of difficulties yet and and and actually, what's what's also is we are still so small, even though for us it looks like one square kilometer is a big milestone.

Speaker 2: 40:05

That we've done. Yes, it is, but it is still a very, very small thing. When you compare the size of the ocean, it's nothing compared to the size of the ocean, right? And and even if you do a calculation of if you want to replace crude oil for a country like india, even the size of the farm required for that is nothing compared to the amount of sea that we have. So I know we're talking about scale, but I think when you put it in perspective of what's the size of the ocean and really where we want to be doing, how much we're going to be doing, I think it's still pretty inconsequential, at least for the next 1500 years Maybe, when we start talking about tens of thousands of square kilometers or hundreds of thousands of square kilometers, even then it's probably small, because each country has sometimes millions of square kilometers of just EZs, economic exclusive zones and there are so many countries with so much of area, it's still a very small fry in in our view and how difficult was it to get the license?

Speaker 1: 41:08

because of course in farming you can get the, the leases, you can buy the land in certain countries, not everywhere, etc. It's pretty well established, I think. From my time at aqua spark I remember leases for aquaculture to the fish farming site as well were definitely not easy. How is that in seaweed? Or how was that in Indonesia, where you eventually landed?

Speaker 2: 41:32

So we spent a lot of time in the country. For us, we went to Indonesia almost 10 years ago, the first contact that we made. So it took us time to understand the country, the culture, the community, the people. But then Indonesia is also one of the most forward-looking maritime industries because they are an archipelago right and they've known they had to understand how to use it.

Speaker 2: 41:58

So, compared to India where, when I go, you know when we went to initially to any government and said, hey, listen, I want to lease this part of the sea, where nobody had any clue of what you want to do with the sea, because you know, we just we're a country which has a large amount of land. We've always been very land focused, so there was very little policies or understanding on how to even do this on the oceans. But in a country like Indonesia it was actually very, very, very easy, straightforward. They have policies, structures and processes in place where you can identify the area that you want and lease them out. So that way we actually had a very positive experience about the whole thing.

Speaker 1: 42:41

Going from one to 10,000, I mean, in the Silicon silicon valley it's always like, okay, how do we go 100x and 10 000x and all of those, like what is missing? In your view, this, of course, was a big question, but after 14 years, like you, you have some very interesting proof of concept and some very proof points. Actually, in prices, in quantities, what is is blocking the seaweed industry now, or what are opportunities, probably to really start scaling, to start talking about these issues we just discussed? What is the impact at scale on the sea, on the ocean? That we don't know unless we get to scale.

Speaker 2: 43:19

So I think two things we need to really bring it to scales which make a difference. I think larger companies today look at where the CMEs are being used right, you can hardly pick out any large MNCs or corporations buying lots of these products based on CMEs. So I was trying to talk about it, saying things about it, but there are no contracts where you can pick the top 10 companies or 20 companies and saying all of them have said they will use this for the ag or this for the biomaterials or anything. Two issues there, because large companies also want guarantee of supply, guarantee of price, guarantee of quality.

Speaker 2: 43:53

So as a seaweed industry, we need to move up to that level which I think we're just coming there right just now. We say that, okay, I have this one square kilometer module with quality, with whatever else I can provide for you at scale, but then they'll be like I need a hundred of this, can you do that? And to a hundred, you need time and money. And how many people today are willing to say that, hey, I'm going to fund you. Just go make the farm and do the seaweed things? Because the amount of money which has gone into investments into the seaweed industry is already limited, and in that limited, the amount which has come to Southeast Asia is a teeny tiny fraction.

Speaker 1: 44:34

So that's a really big lever. More money into the tropical side of seaweed farming.

Speaker 2: 44:42

Yes, I mean there is hardly any big names which has invested into tropical seaweed. It's probably C6, is probably the few VCs we have, are probably the people who have invested in it. Right, but the amount of money like you said in Silicon Valley, somebody asking you know, I want you to do this 100x, I want to do 1000x For them to understand what a tropical seaweed is far away from home. It's still a very difficult thing and people need to spend the time to be able to understand it, to take the bet, and more people who are able to do that travel to do that understanding. That's when we can really unlock the potential of this. We're sitting on something which can potentially be huge in terms of providing solutions, but are we willing to take time and effort to invest in it, to understand it, so that we can grow it? So that's one big piece.

Speaker 1: 45:33

The second part is we get to the second one. But have you seen a change at all? Like in the last years I mean, you went, of course, from like a non-topic at all like you raised money. You've been very vocal about things have you seen more people taking the time and taking a plane to Indonesia and come and see things actually and coming to your offices and actually, instead of just sending an email oh, I'm interested because that's very easy, but actually taking the time and come, has that changed in the last years at all?

Speaker 2: 46:00

So it has definitely changed to how it used to be, but I still think that is a very small fraction. If, for example, if we said we're doing something in ai, I think the number of people who are going to take a plane and come see us is going to be different from the number of people we probably have today right.

Speaker 1: 46:16

Maybe you should put it in your deck for sure. You're using ai to analyze your your like everybody's doing that. Like, put it more promin. I'm not saying, put it there if it's not there, but if it's there, put it more prominently. Just to AI and seaweed People get excited.

Speaker 2: 46:31

But that if I put something in our deck, then we really need to have a team working on it. Of course, we use some simple AI tools to do it, but that's a different thing. Anything with.

Speaker 1: 46:41

I think most people do that and they still put it in their deck, so don't feel ashamed.

Speaker 2: 46:44

Yeah, no, I know.

Speaker 1: 46:45

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 46:47

Okay, so that's a big block.

Speaker 1: 46:53

It's investor education far, far from daily reality, if you manage institutional capital in Frankfurt, or even in Delhi or in Hong Kong, like it's all just not something you think about, except for, unfortunately, your sushi. And then the second, one, second big blocking.

Speaker 2: 47:08

The second big block, I think, is also consumer awareness. So, for example, I think some companies have done some fantastic work on how seaweeds can be used in their daily life as products, but that awareness, the consumer awareness, is still just getting started as products. But that awareness, the consumer awareness, is still just getting started. Right, if I sell somebody hey, this is a packet of I don't know seaweed snacks in US, I'm not sure how many of them would be willing to open it up and, you know, pop it in. Versus in Thailand or Indonesia or Philippines, it's pretty normal. Hey, I have a seaweed chip, which is quite normal. So there are very few. The consumer awareness is still getting started out there.

Speaker 2: 47:42

Uh, even in the ag space, I think seaweed extracts have been there for a long time. But the newer ones, uh, where you need to also spend time. So for us, we had to spend so much money on, you know, spending on research to understand our products, to register our products globally, and all of them takes a lot of time. So so part of the reason why it takes 14 years is when you have to do things like even educate the regulators about what your product is. It takes that long, but I think a lot of those blocks are moving away right now. Especially in the last two, three years, we see a lot of them becoming more and more easier and opening up to the possibility, but still a very, very, very long way to go if you want to make this a huge industry in the future.

Speaker 1: 48:26

And if you would have to tell investors what they should know about. I mean, should is a big word here, but let's say we do. I always like to ask this question is let's say, we do it in the theater, in the financial heart of Indonesia or in India or somewhere else, and the room is full of investors managing their money or their wealth and other people's money. Of course they're excited, we show a lot of pictures and maybe we take them on a virtual dive, et cetera. But if there's one thing because people don't remember, if there's one thing you want them to remember after the evening about Seaweed, about the potential, the challenges, what they need to do and specifically what they should do at work.

Speaker 2: 49:09

What would that be? What's the seed you would like to plant? If there's one thing you could tell investors, I'd say that how many of us know where the fossil fuel came from? Fossil fuel was nothing but plants at some point of time. Right, and the only way we want to, if we want to transition out of fossil fuel which use the same products, which is, your fertilizers, your plastics, your fuels, the food that you eat, the aviation, everything that you're talking about, all of that is driven by fossil fuel today. We just don't understand how much of fossil fuel is there in our life every day. The best way to transition from that is to look at something which is also from plants, and that's your seaweed there. So I don't know if that connects very easily, but to me in my mind, I always say fossil fuels came from plant and animal biomass, because plants are the most efficient ways of turning sunlight into any other form of energy, and the best way to do that is on plants on the ocean, so that you save the land for the food.

Speaker 1: 50:10

I think that's a good. It's a really good plug for the seaweed space. And if we flip the conversation, so if you would be in charge of, let's say, a billion dollars I usually like to use a large amount, it's a crazy amount of money, obviously, but if you're no longer running c6 but you, you are in charge to put a billion dollars to work, I'm not looking for exact amounts, I'm looking for what would you prioritize as an investor in this space maybe even another space, but let's say this space what would you focus on? What would be your top priorities? Where would you allocate the largest buckets of of this investment amount if you had to put a billion dollars to work?

Speaker 2: 50:48

So, of course, the first place I would really put my billion dollars on is making these products at a scale which can start going to markets globally.

Speaker 1: 51:00

So really the production side of things.

Speaker 2: 51:03

The production side and the commercialization side. Those are the two pieces which would. I would really like to drive that part, and the second part is, of course, on um, scaling up this technology. Also, how do you take this one square kilometers into 100 square kilometers? You would need equipment, capexes on that front. So I think that would be another part. And the third key part would also be to spend on the research on the seaweed biology as well. So that would be the three key buckets I would put. So engineering, biology and products. I mean, it sounds like it's all parts, but it is all parts in a way as well. Right, because you need to drive them at a certain pace together to really get where you want to go.

Speaker 1: 51:48

And how would you slice it then? Would it really be a third, a third, a third. Or would you say no, actually the production part needs half and then actually the research part needs less, although potentially the upside is higher. How would you slice this billion if it's not a?

Speaker 2: 52:05

third it's definitely not a third. I think the commercialization and your production piece would probably be more like 40%. Then the entire setting up your farms would be another 30%, 30%. Research would probably be more like 15%, 20%. That's how I would split it.

Speaker 1: 52:27

And do you see, like larger institutional investors or infrastructure investors almost starting to get interested in this farming piece, as we see and we were discussing this pre-recording that we see, at least in the regeneration space on land, slowly but more and more serious larger funds starting to buy up land regenerating and seeing a business case there. Do you have those conversations already? What do you see there, let's say, in the land or in the seabase space?

Speaker 2: 52:57

I think some of the conversations are starting to get bigger, I think. But, like I said, you know, know, the space is still pretty small. Uh, the largest fund in the space probably has 500 million dollars under management. Um, we don't have funds which are saying hey, I have a few billion dollars to invest on portion-based solutions or portion-focused initiatives, where it's not even a single fund versus. You know, when you look at your tech spaces or other spaces, you'll have multiple billion dollar funds which are focusing. There is no PE funds in the space yet because there has not been a company as big to take up PE investment. There's been no IPOs in this space. So I think it's still early on that journey and that's where we need people to come in, start contributing and focusing on as well.

Speaker 1: 53:44

And then on the research piece like how early are we in the genetics of the seaweed you're growing, Of course, the tropical side, like how much more, because you mentioned one of the limiting factors of microalgae was the limiting photosynthesis. Like how, if we compare it to land-based farming, or, of course, genetics played a huge role in development, in efficiencies, et cetera. Where do you feel you are in terms of because you also had to develop that piece, of course, not just growing equipment lines, harvesting, processing, but also what are we actually growing and how do we make sure genetics make sense for where we're growing it?

Speaker 2: 54:21

No, c6 is not looking at genetics at all, because I think it's also um. We feel there's so much more that needs to be done even before so you can buy your seed things, or how do you call it.

Speaker 1: 54:32

You can buy your seed off the market and be happy with it you can buy so what you don't need genetics for seed management.

Speaker 2: 54:43

There's a lot of breeding techniques that you can do simple breeding techniques without any genetic modifications.

Speaker 1: 54:49

I'm not saying the modification side, but you want to manage your genetics and select for it.

Speaker 2: 54:56

Yes, genetic selection, natural selections, those kind of things yes, we definitely need to spend time and money, and that's something that we do as well. Which is the best trade to put out there? Um, how do you manage those nurseries? How do you make sure that they're the best uh seedlings to grow out there and grow on your farms? So those kind of studies, optimization of the growth cycles, uh, when you put them in, when you take them out, how do you manage that particular? So all of that, that definitely yes, but yeah, I mean in terms of there's so much that needs to be done in that space.

Speaker 1: 55:28

How far do you feel you are Like at 10%, 20% of the potential in that space in terms of growing efficiencies of understanding?

Speaker 2: 55:36

We've probably done 10, 20% of that, not more than that. Luckily now you know everybody understanding this has set together a new tropical seaweed research institute in Indonesia, with multiple parties coming in. So we hope that institutes like that, global institutes coming up like that, would progress a lot Because as a company it doesn't make so much of fiduciary not fiduciary, but the best resource that you don't want to be spending on research which would get a result, say, five years or 10 years from now. Right, and that is something typically you would like to do with research institutes who have that kind of horizons, who just want to publicize information and make it available for a large group of people.

Speaker 2: 56:20

We can't be having strain banks of I don't know a thousand strains just collecting and sitting in our backyard. So that's not the kind of work that we can do in a company format. So that's why I think working with these research institutions, setting up these places, collaborating with them, would move that piece forward. Where we focus on is more on efficiencies of growing lifecycle managements, the few strains that we have in that you know, understanding seasonalities which will go when, how to use that most efficiently. I think that kind of work we do in-house. We do more work on seaweed biology, but not really on banking strains and looking at those kinds of things.

Speaker 1: 56:58

And if you had a magic wand and could change one thing overnight, let's say in the seaweed space, but only one thing? What would that be?

Speaker 2: 57:08

Awareness. I think we need more, more, more awareness. We need more people understanding the benefits of products from this. We need governments understanding. So I think, just letting people know that, hey, listen, we actually might be sitting at a solution which could help all of us, right Like this, and we need to be focusing on it, investing on it, promoting it. I think that creating that awareness, in my opinion, would be a very, very, very important thing and I think, thanks to guys like you, hopefully more people will listen about this and a few more people get awareness about this.

Speaker 1: 57:46

Let's hope definitely. And what are you excited about Like now? Are you going from one to 10 square or like one to 10 farms? Are you like what are big pieces of work or releasing new products? I mean, you're doing all of it, but if you had to look at this year, we're recording this in the middle of 2024.

Speaker 2: 58:10

And what are big milestones or big pieces that you're looking forward to For us? Obviously, on the upstream part, we're looking at seeing how we can make this one square kilometer so efficient that it becomes a completely replicable model, because it's the first. You know, optimizing it, making it fully functional, still takes time. It's not when you just deploy the farm day one. There's hardly, you know, any optimizations or operations at scale. So for us, end of this year, one of the target is to have that very efficiently, a fully sustainable, clearly operational square kilometre model. That's one part. The second part is also about we have made considerable amount of reach in our ag products. I mean today we sell in about 20, 25 countries globally, but we want to be making strong movements in our biomaterials and the food segments.

Speaker 1: 59:06

So those would be the two big milestones for us which we'd like to focus for the next year or so, and food as the seaweed snacks you mentioned before the chips, or what are you thinking? What should we imagine when you mention food?

Speaker 2: 59:20

Could be many of that. I think we're probably not ready yet to exactly say which one we're focusing on, but yes, I think we see a lot of opportunities and potentials in the food space with seaweed.

Speaker 1: 59:34

Because it's more. Is it, from a margin perspective, more interesting than, let's say, fertilizer replacement or biosimilance? Or why is food? Do you use a different part of the seaweed? Why is food interesting for you?

Speaker 2: 59:47

of scale. See, when you go down the path of you know ag is a big production scale kind of a thing. The next thing is how can you start using seaweeds and foods more, because food is again a very, very, very large market. So where can you use it? How can you use it? How can seaweeds play a larger role in that and not just being a sushi there? So I think that's where we're looking at.

Speaker 1: 1:00:07

And from a funding perspective, you say we're starting to have some of these conversations with large institutional and do you look at agriculture as well for inspiration or how that has developed in terms of funding? Are you learning from land-based or is it so different and so nascent that that's tricky?

Speaker 2: 1:00:26

You can always learn from land-based. I think we have a huge history of agriculture on land, so you make sure you look at the goods and the bads on that and you try and evolve your strategies according to that. We also have a lot of mentors who suggest and advise us on how to go into businesses in different markets, right? So I think you have a whole bunch of people that we reach out to have access to who can help us in understanding how can it be done efficiently in Ocean, looking at land or other things as well, because in Ocean also there's been aquaculture, so there's stuff that you can learn from aquaculture practices.

Speaker 1: 1:01:11

Anything else that investors and entrepreneurs, as well and farmers that are listening to this podcast, should really know something we didn't cover that I should have asked. Let's say we didn't cover yet in this conversation that we didn't cover yet in this conversation.

Speaker 2: 1:01:26

I think one thing is you know, sometimes we get this question of you know how long do you think you've taken 14 years to come where you are.

Speaker 2: 1:01:39

How much longer do you think it's going to take before you can actually scale this up? I think what I would like to tell entrepreneurs starting up in this area and investors starting to look at this area is this is definitely not your tech area, where you put in the money and three years, five years later, you're getting a massive return. I think it is going to be a longer gestational period. So get on it if you feel you're ready to spend a few years, much longer than the initial three or five. So for any entrepreneurs or investors I keep saying you know, when you build an industry for the first time, you've got to be able to go all the way. I think today it's going to be much easier and, frankly, I think in the next five years I see a lot of change, substantial amount of work coming through in this particular phase. So I think finally, we may be ready to be an industry which is ready to take off.

Speaker 1: 1:02:37

And do you think the investors are there, ready as well, or starting to become ready, or there's still a lot of education?

Speaker 2: 1:02:43

There's a lot more people starting to become ready, or there's still a lot of education. There's a lot more people starting to become ready.

Speaker 1: 1:02:47

We see a lot of interests in having to learn about the sector and knowing more about what is possible, so definitely I see a lot of potential there I think it's a good moment to wrap up and I want to thank you so much for your time and coming on here to to share and explain to a community that for sure has heard about seaweed and has maybe even looked at it in certain certain ways, maybe even, through aquaspark, invested in it indirectly, but I think for the majority of us it's still like a mechanized tropical seaweed farm is sounds really interesting, but what do we actually imagine and how much work it took and development to get there. Um, and where we are in the in the seaweed industry is, uh, it's just a great gift to have you on here and and learn more about that. So thank you so much for the work you do, obviously, and for coming on here to share about it thank you for listening to what I had to say.

Speaker 2: 1:03:39

Aquaspark actually directly invested in us as well, and I know some listeners are investors in AquaSpark, so indirectly they are in you.

Speaker 1: 1:03:46

So I just wanted to share, Ah, okay, into AquaSpark.

Speaker 2: 1:03:48

Yeah so we had some great investors BASF Potato Impact Productions in US Silver Strand so I mean we have some really, really good investors backing us and a lot more people, like I said, are getting interested and a lot more good companies are coming up in this space. So can't wait to see what's more coming up in the next few years.

Speaker 1: 1:04:19

Very, very looking forward to that. Thank you so much for listening all the way to the end. For the show notes and links we discussed in this episode, check out our website investinginregenerativeagriculturecom. Forward slash posts. If you liked this episode, why not share it with a friend or give us a rating on Apple Podcasts? That really helps. Thanks again and see you next time. Thank you.