Swedish land-based aquaculture company Big Akwa AB has secured essential funding for its next stage in developing sustainable rainbow trout farming facilities in central Sweden.
The company, which operates on a philosophy of "industrial symbiosis", utilizing waste heat from a neighbouring green hydrogen plant, has secured funding of SEK 4.75 million (EUR 42,000). The financing, Big Akwa CEO and co-founder Elena Petukhovskaya says, will be used to carry out environmental permitting works. Big Akwa's land-based RAS facilities will be located at the Alby industrial park in the heart of Sweden, with annual production capacity of 6,000 metric tons.
The company raised the funding through a combination of equity sales and loans. The existing investors Sparbanksstiftelsen Norrlands Riskkapitalstiftelse and Almi Invest Mitt contributed SEK 1.75 million through equity sales, as part of the company's second investment round. Additionally, Big Akwa secured new loans amounting to SEK 3 million from Almi Företagspartner and Norrlandsfonden.
"We are grateful to our investors and lenders and the great trust they show in our company," said Petukhovskaya. "These investments will be decisive for us to reach our goals in the work with the environmental permits," added Hugo Wikström, VP and co-founder of Big Akwa.
Big Akwa aims to develop new innovative solutions for food production through industrial symbiosis. The construction of the Alby facility is the "first step" in that direction, say the founders. The fish farm will also operate in "industrial symbiosis" with British Renewable Energy Systems (RES). In addition to this, Big Akwa also plans to establish innovative processing of the residual products.
With a co-located fish farming system Big Akwa revolutionizes land-based aquaculture by introducing industrial symbiosis between the aquaculture and industry. Our industrial food-tech innovation utilizes the waste of each other to produce competitive and safe products.
