Seafields – a UK-based sustainable aquafarms developer, has opened its private investment round on April 25th on crowdfunding platform Crowdcube. In just 24 hours, the crowdfunding campaign reached its target of £265,000 ($330,000).
Seafields is an aquaculture business that aims to remove billions of metric tons of carbon from the atmosphere each year by growing and harvesting floating seaweed in the Atlantic Ocean. The company plans to grow Sargassum seaweed, and then harvest it, process it and sink the remains to remove CO2 from the atmosphere.
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Sargassum is a seaweed that doubles in size every +/-14 days and is highly efficient at capturing CO2. The company’s approach is suited as a carbon removal and storage method and also as a CO2 utilization pathway as the Sargassum can serve as a feedstock for the production of biological alternatives of fossil fuel-based products.
Seafields wants to produce Sargassum in the open ocean and sell it to partners at CarbonWave, who will turn it into products like vegan leather and biostimulants, and to the petrochemical industry, which will use it as a feedstock for bioplastics.
The next step of the startup is to domesticate the Sargassum for open ocean cultivation, and have already started developing its methodology for carbon credits. Seafields also needs to prove its farms are commercially viable and develop a fertilizing method using upwelling pipes.
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The company has placed a target to remove over 1 gigaton of CO2 from the air each year by 2032. Seafields is inviting investors to contribute to its mission and take part in the already fully funded crowdfunding campaign.