Cascadia Seaweed, the largest cultivator and processor of seaweed-derived agricultural products in North America, is excited to announce the successful first close of its Series A Funding Round, raising CAD$4 million, with investments from WWF Impact (the impact investing arm of World Wildlife Fund US), Vere Ventures, Potato Impact Partners, VertueLab Climate Impact Fund, Realize Impact, the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia, Norfolk Green Ventures and other valued investors. Cascadia Seaweed aims to secure the remaining funds to reach its $7 million Series A target. With this funding, the company will build a commercial-scale seaweed biorefinery on the West Coast, increase biomass production, and expand sales and marketing of its liquid kelp extracts, biostimulants, and livestock products.
Founded in 2019, Cascadia Seaweed is a vertically integrated AgTech company committed to revolutionizing the agricultural landscape by transforming a sustainable ocean crop into premium natural solutions for farmers. Cascadia Seaweed cultivates local species of seaweed on low-impact ocean farms owned by coastal First Nations, then harvests that seaweed and manufactures products for regenerative agriculture, specifically biostimulants and animal feed additives, helping producers increase yields and reduce emissions. As the largest ocean cultivator of seaweed (kelp) in North America, Cascadia aims to produce at a large enough scale to make a meaningful impact on climate change and enhance food security.
Dr. Jennifer Clark, Chief Scientist at Cascadia Seaweed in the mobile nursery and with a wall of Sugar Kelp.
“We are thrilled with the support from both new and existing investors,” says Michael Williamson, CEO of Cascadia Seaweed. “We’ve built a vertically integrated business that delivers real environmental and economic benefits, and this funding will enable us to scale up and provide surety of supply of innovative inputs to our customers while contributing to more resilient food production in North America.” This milestone marks a significant step in the fast-growing global seaweed industry.
WWF Impact, the impact investing arm of World Wildlife Fund US, supports investment solutions to solve some of the most pressing environmental challenges facing people and the planet. They work to identify mission driven founders and innovative business models that have the potential to help combat the climate crisis, as well as deliver measurable benefits to the ecosystems and communities in which their companies operate. The goal is to amplify and accelerate WWF’s overall mission by tightly aligning this impact investing work with WWF conservation programs.
The urgency for adopting new technologies that reduce emissions and improve food security is well recognized in the face of global changes in precipitation, temperature and other stressors. Seaweed based biostimulants and livestock feed supplements offer natural, scalable solutions reducing the need for chemical products and reducing agricultural emissions. Additionally, ocean-cultivated seaweed provides valuable ecosystem services, improving the oceans in which it is grown.