Blue Lice wins £200,000 for pilot project
A start-up company that caught the attention of the aquaculture industry with a concept to catch lice before they reach fish cages has now created interest among investors.
Yesterday the Norwegian company Blue Lice announced that during the summer have been in contact with several investor groups to raise growth capital, and had received NOK2 million (£200,000) from a local investor network in Oslo.
Blue Lice chief executive, Karoline Sjødal Olsen, told website kyst.no: "We are very pleased to have got to the stage of investor collaboration, and look forward to starting up a pilot project in the autumn."
The company will not yet reveal who the investors are or anything about the technology behind the product, but confirms that it will soon stand ready to conduct a full-scale pilot test for validation.
Innovation showcase
The company has also gained international attention, and has been included in the "Innovation Showcase" at the Aquaculture Innovation Summit in London in late September.
"I think I can say that I'm both looking forward to it and I'm afraid, it will be very exciting at least," said Olsen.
Blue Lice was assessed by an international jury comprising representatives from the US, England, Norway, Canada and Brazil. The start-up company was selected on the basis of innovation and is one of 12 young companies chosen to make presentations in London.
Blue Lice has already completed prototype testing of the unit in Stavanger, earlier this year, with good results.
Similar concepts
“This test gave us such a good indication that this can work that the next step is to run a larger pilot test in cooperation with a farming company and, more preferably, a research institution,” said Olsen, a marine engineering graduate, earlier this month.
Olsen explained that the system consists of a device positioned outside the cage. This has several components that attract lice away from the salmon.
“There have been tests carried out on similar concepts with some of the factors previously, but it is the combination of these that makes our solution work and makes it unique. Some attraction factors are known and some unknown to the industry,” she said.
