Sea & Believe is a little different than the typical IndieBio company in that they already have a successful product on the market. The Ireland-based company sells two alt-fish products, an Irish seaweed burger and seaweed goujons, and today they are available in 50 stores across Ireland.
But as the company showed last week at IndieBio’s Demo Day, they are close to launching what they see as their biggest breakthrough yet: a plant-based whole-cut filet of ‘cod’ that flakes like real fish.
For company founder Jennifer O’Brien, Irish seaweed is a natural choice as a foundational building block for an alt-seafood product. Growing up in Ireland, O’Brien would eat seaweed to find relief for chronic asthma. The more she studied it, the more she realized the other benefits of seaweed, including its ability to deacidify the ocean, sequestering carbon at a rate three times higher per acre than forests.
“I knew then that there was something special about Irish seaweed,” O’Brien told IndieBio. “I wanted to learn about its properties and figure out how to scale that into a business some day.”
That dream eventually led her to found Sea & Believe, where she and Chief Technology Officer Piyali Chakraborty would eventually launch their first couple of products and start to develop their white cod filet. The company believes the filet, which will have up to 25 grams of protein, will be the first plant-based seafood product to flake just like the real thing.
The company is raising funds to continue the development of its cod and to build out its seaweed supply chain, including a seaweed farm in northwest Ireland. They are working with two Irish agencies – Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM), the Irish seafood development agency, and Údarás na Gaeltachta (UnAg), a regional Irish economic development agency – to help train local fisherman to harvest seaweed on 500 meter rope lines.
The company is looking to raise $3 million in seed funding. With a product already on the market and a successful prototype for flaky plant-based cod, I imagine it won’t take long given the growing interest in alt-seafood.
You can watch their pitch video below to learn more.
