Barcelona-based KOA Biotech at the moment broadcasts it has raised a €2 million funding spherical to develop options for the aquaculture sector, particularly a biosensor system that detects waterborne infections in fish farms earlier than they unfold, decreasing mortality charges, antibiotic use and environmental affect.
Swanlaab Innvierte Agrifood-Tech led the spherical, with Fund-F and Faber additionally collaborating.
Greater than half of the fish consumed comes from aquaculture manufacturing. Nevertheless, as highlighted by Sira Mogas, CEO and Founding father of KOA, “infections in fish farms are a rising drawback, inflicting losses of as much as 30% of manufacturing (economically estimated globally at over $6 billion).”
Based in 2021, KOA was born as a spin-off of Pompeu Fabra College, primarily based on Mogas’ doctoral thesis. The corporate goal is to develop into a reference within the analysis and prevention of ailments in aquaculture, selling sustainable practices and contributing to the worldwide development of this trade.
KOA Biotech is structured round three key pillars: biotechnology, knowledge engineering, and {hardware} improvement.
Utilizing biotechnological instruments, KOA Biotech has developed a biosensor system that, mixed with proprietary algorithms, varieties an autonomous machine able to early detection of waterborne infections. This allows to implement preventive measures in manufacturing methods to forestall the unfold of infections in water, decreasing mortality attributable to infectious pathogens and the usage of antibiotics in fish farms.
In accordance with KOA, their biosensor displays water 10x extra frequent than present options.
Their resolution is predicated on an progressive hybrid know-how that mixes dwelling organisms which might detect pathogens of curiosity, and a micro-electronic interface to remodel the indicators in a web-based platform. This data is thresholded to ship early-warning alerts when a sure pathogen is exceeding its relative abundance.
In accordance with KOA, one of many main issues arising in aquaculture services is the presence of bacterial and viral infections. Recognising the worldwide demand for protein sources amid a rising inhabitants and the essential position aquaculture can play, they’re creating an answer to handle this market want whereas overcoming key challenges, together with:
- The necessity for specialised technicians
- Pattern assortment and logistics for laboratory evaluation
- Delayed detection, as samples are solely despatched after mortality indicators seem
- Reliance on antibiotics to fight infections
Swanlaab emphasises that KOA’s know-how allows the optimisation of pure useful resource utilization, reduces environmental affect, and addresses essential challenges equivalent to manufacturing, meals safety, and local weather change.
As Nora Alonso, Normal Associate of Swanlaab Innvierte Agrifood-Tech, highlights, “investing in technological and progressive corporations like KOA is essential for the event and worth creation primarily based on the analysis performed on this sector in Spain, in addition to a lever for the event and differentiation of the nation’s agri-food sector, with a worldwide affect. Moreover, it represents a possibility to draw overseas funding on this sector, as within the case of KOA, which on this funding spherical has the participation of two worldwide affect funds, Fund-F and FABER.”
This funding spherical will allow KOA not solely to advance its technological improvement and consolidate its know-how within the sector but additionally to implement its industrial plan, making certain the corporate’s future development.
Swanlaab Enterprise Manufacturing unit is a VC agency in Spain with a workforce with an intensive expertise in investing in startups in Spain and Israel for over 20 years in numerous sectors equivalent to B2B Software program, Biotech, and Agrifood-Tech. The Swanlaab workforce has based and managed their very own startups, led famend VC funds, and supported the launch of over 200 corporations into the market, with a transparent function of serving to Spanish entrepreneurs succeed globally.
