Kelpinor

🔬 This week, our Head of Research and Development, Lydia Anastasia Schmidt, traveled to Germany to visit the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research to increase our knowledge of clonal gametophytes – a technique used for cultivating kelp with desired genetics, thereby increasing the quality of the kelp. Her participation in this workshop, organized by Dr. Inka Bartsch, is a part of our ongoing project in collaboration with Nord universitet and Polaralge to conduct research on biofouling on sugar kelp. 🌱 Biofouling is a natural process that occurs when the light availability and water temperatures increase in the summer. This leads other marine species, such as mussels and bryozoans, to settle and grow on the kelp. This causes competition for light and nutrients and can result in reduced growth of the kelp, as well as increased production costs and impact on product consistency. To investigate this issue, the research project with Uni Nord and Polaralge focuses on genetic selection and optimized deployment to prolong the growth period, minimize biofouling, and produce yields of higher value.

♻️ Product Update! Advancing Sustainable Production! ♻️ 🌊 As a part of our commitment to sustainable use of marine resources, we are about to begin a production round of our mixed biostimulant, containing a well-balanced formulation of wild-harvested and cultivated seaweed. Our focus is to transition from slower-regenerating wild-harvested species, such as rockweed (Ascophyllum nodosum), to more ecosystem-friendly cultivated species like sugar kelp (Saccharina latissima) and dabberlocks (Alaria esculenta). 🌱 We are also using this production round to explore different stabilization methods, to establish a consistent supply chain. All the seaweed is received from our Arctic partners. 🚀 Milestone Alert: We have achieved a key milestone in our particle size optimization! Now, 80% of our product particles are under 80 microns – leading to less clogging of nozzles when applied foliar. Last picture is from our ongoing hydroponics experiments, showing promising results. We are looking forward to the analysis and statistical results! 🔜 Looking ahead, we will be showcasing our samples at several upcoming events in the next few months, especially looking forward to IMP ESSEN in January. If you are planning to attend, we would love to connect and share our latest developments with you. Cannot make it? No problem—just reach out to Hermann.schips@kelpinor.no , and we will arrange a way to connect. #SustainableSolutions #Biostimulant #ProductUpdate #Innovation #BlueEconomy #BlueGrowth

Successful Closing of Kelpinor’s Pre-Seed Investment Round! 🌱🙌🏼 We are happy to announce that we have successfully secured our 2,7 mNOK Pre-Seed Investment Round! 🎉 We are incredibly grateful that there are people who have faith in us and see the potential both for us as a team and a company, as well as for our product. It is amazing to have others believe in our vision of providing sustainable seaweed products to the European market. With that, we would like to thank and welcome our new investors Carl Fredrik Tjeransen (Tokai AS), Espen Lynne, Emil Theodor Bjørdal, Tord Søfteland (Agilvo AS), Baard Hall (Tenari AS), and Asbjørn Lilletun (Norinnova AS) 😁 Monday night was spent celebrating with an amazing dinner with family and friends, also thanking them for their support. 🙏🏼 To compensate for the long days and the incredible effort put in by the entire team, we are now looking forward to spending some time out of the office as we kick off our weekend a little early! 🌞 To you, our supporter who maybe wanted to invest in us, but did not have the capacity to do so at this time - shoot us a message to be put on the investor newsletter list 🤝 We will keep you in the loop for our next round. It might be around summer next year - the window will be short ☺️

How do you build a plant research facility from scratch? 🌱🌌 Kelpinor confronted this question several months ago when we decided we needed to build capability to empirically assess how our biostimulants impact plants under controlled conditions. After all, iterative development relies on our ability to evaluate real-world results. This is where our collaboration with Grønt fra nord showed the power of startups working together! 🤝 Specializing in vertical farming of salad greens and microgreens, Grønt fra nord provided an effective testbed for our biostimulants, and helped us set up our own in-house hydroponic system designed specifically for repeatable plant experiments. 🌱 #Biostimulants are effective in improving plants' resilience to various types of abiotic stress, such as heat, water scarcity, soil salinity, and UV radiation. A hydroponic setup allows us to precisely control environmental factors—nutrient levels, humidity, light, temperature spikes, and salt exposure. This level of control enables us to simulate specific stress scenarios and evaluate how different dosages and formulations influence plant adaptability. 👩🔬 Given the increasing frequency of extreme weather events caused by climate change, it's critical to develop solutions that help plants withstand these challenges. By understanding how our biostimulants affect plant resilience—whether it's improving drought tolerance or reducing UV damage—we're not only advancing our product development but also contributing to sustainable agricultural practices. 📈 Over the past four months, we’ve been working to standardize our experimental protocols. This work was started by Lydia and our summer interns Alex, Frida and Sarah. Since the initial drawings, much progress has been made, and we’re already generating data that guide our product development and validate our product portfolio. Much of this credit goes to Arshad Kadevalappil, whose interdiciplinary approach to biology and data science is turning raw data into real insights. His work on an analysis pipeline and use of image processing for monitoring plant biomass is giving us a clearer understanding of our product’s impact. Going forward, we’ll continue to refine our experimentation methods and identifying new ways to improve agricultural resilience to climate change.

We did it! 🏆 Kelpinor was awarded Best Startup at Opplyst in Bodø! 🎉 We're so proud to have our hard work and innovation recognized by a jury representing Bodø Næringsforum, Nye Bodø, DNB, Avisa Nordland, Visit Bodø, T Kolstad Eiendom, Fauske Næringsforum, EVER, and Innovation Norway. 🙌 As jury chair Ulrikke Kristensen from DNB put it: "Kelpinor has, through expertise and perseverance, positioned itself for both the national and international market in a short period of time, and is in many ways an inspiration for other entrepreneurs. We believe that Kelpinor will go far, and we wish them the best of luck on their journey." Our CEO Hermann Schips was on stage yesterday to accept the award. But that’s not all—earlier this week, we also had the opportunity to attend the Startuplab 2030 CleanTech Summit in Oslo, where we connected with startups and industry leaders driving climate solutions and innovating for a sustainable future. 💡🌍 It’s been an great week for our team, and look forward to continue pushing ahead and scaling our impact. 🚀 Hermann Schips Nils Christoffer Joys Røang Lydia Anastasia Schmidt Sara W. Johan Ludvig Holst ARSHAD KADEVALAPPIL #startup #cleantech #innovation #entrepreneurship #sustainability

🚀 This past month, we’ve been thrilled to welcome Sara W. to the Kelpinor team! She is currently pursuing her Masters in Sustainability at the University of Bergen, and over the next year, she’ll be diving deep into her thesis on Sustainability of Seaweed Cultivation for Biostimulants. 🧪📚 👩🔬 While working on her thesis, Sara will be getting hands-on experience with every part of our production process here at Kelpinor. ⛰️ An essential part of working and living here at Sandhornøya is exploring the breathtaking nearby nature. Last Friday, our excursion took us to Fugløya, a neighbouring island and bird sanctuary. There, we climbed Storsanden, a stunning natural vertical sand dune rising 300 meters straight up the mountain! 🌟 We are eager to host more students in similar internships going forward. If you’re interested in gaining valuable experience while surrounded by Norways most incredible landscapes, send us your application at www.kelpinor.no/apply or reach us at careers@kelpinor.no.

Last week we shipped off another 2 000 liters of seaweed biostimulant for plants to customers in Europe! 🌱 We have now increased our processing capacity nearly 5000% since March, we are learning a lot very quickly and are on track to continue pushing our production further in the months to come. The EU has a goal to reduce pesticide use by 20% within the next 6 years. To do that, agricultural biologicals and particularly seaweed biostimulants will become increasingly important. This is why we look forward to introducing biostimulant from cultivated seaweed to more producers, farmers and gardens - both organic and traditional - all around the world. Great resilience to droughts and heatwaves like those happening in southern Europe, and the highly sustainable cultivated seaweed will be among key reasons for why farmers prefer products like ours.💧 Curious about our development efforts? Reach out at www.kelpinor.no Hermann Schips | Johan Ludvig Holst | Nils Christoffer Joys Røang | Jakob Kienzler | Lydia Anastasia Schmidt | Sarah Bartels | Frida Reier Rushfeldt | Alex Greenan | Ivan Vera

⚡️🌱 News alert ⚡️🌱 "Our customers explain it as having the same effect on plants as a Red Bull has for a truck driver," Hermann says jokingly. Our CEO, Hermann Schips, talked about our Biostimulants with Shifter, Norways most prominent site for startups news. The potential, he believes, they have already proven by securing their first repeat paying customer. 🗞 Read the full article in Norwegian: https://lnkd.in/dPENYAjc

👏 Great new additions to this years summer team is Sarah, Frida and Ivan! 👏 Sarah is a Danish-American masters candidate in Sustainable Fisheries and Aquaculture Engineering at the Technical University of Denmark. At Kelpinor she is currently leading the design and building of our new R&D hatchery. Frida is from Tromsø, and a BSc student in Ecology and Nature Management at NMBU in Ås. She is working to set up our Plant Experiment Laboratory to do incremental efficacy tests of our future biostimulant products. Last is Ivan, who is visiting from Chile and is just finishing his degree in Environmental Engineering at Austral University of Chile in Puerto Montt, and will be a part of the production operations team. They bring valued competence, and lots of really good questions, and as we know, the right questions can often be more important than answers!💡 Sarah Bartels Frida Reier Rushfeldt

This summer we have a great team of interns and trainees joining the company! First out is Alex and ARSHAD! Alex is from the UK, and has a Bachelor's degree in Cellular and Molecular Biology from Newcastle University. Arshad is from India and has a Masters's degree in Ocean Resources from NTNU. We are thrilled to have them on site working on projects relating to the development, production and testing of cultivated seaweed biostimulants!