Fremantle Seaweed has secured a key CSIRO licence to supply its feed to cattle farmers. But a Series B round might be even harder, amid a climate tech funding drought.
A 32-hectare seaweed producer in Western Australia, Fremantle Seaweed, has taken on the weighty challenge of supplying Australia’s cattle industry with asparagopsis — a seaweed additive to cattle feed that it claims reduces ruminant methane emissions by 80-90%.
At present, the farm can supply its Reef2Beef feed supplement to 4,500 head of cattle. Australia’s national cattle herd is 29 million head. The majority of them are grass-fed, and well outside the feedlot settings where the supplement is typically delivered.
Fremantle Seaweed founder Chris De Cuyper, who is gearing up to commercialise the feed, knows what lies ahead. “The valley of death is coming,” he told Capital Brief, referencing the pre-scale-up phase where many climate tech startups sink. His bet? The carbon value the seaweed unlocks will open up the corporate buyers and capital to survive it.
A federal methodology expected to land in early 2028 will enable cattle farmers to earn Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCU) for using feed supplements such as asparagopsis. “There’s a huge pool of funding for good quality carbon projects,” De Cuyper told Capital Brief. “Australian carbon credit units are the highest integrity carbon credit units globally.”
The startup has secured a license from FutureFeed, a CSIRO-established company that holds the global IP for asparagopsis seaweed, to supply its feed supplement to Australian beef and dairy farmers.
FutureFeed chief executive Alex Baker, whose company has ten licensees, says clean tech startups like Fremantle are constrained by the lack of financial scaffolding available in Australia.
“We have no mezzanine, no real mezzanine,” he told Capital Brief. “You look to the States, and it’s a completely different ecosystem. You’ve got mezzanine on mezzanine on mezzanine. You might even get to the second floor.”
“There’s probably $350 million that’s been raised and applied within our licensee groups alone to get us where we are today, including Chris’ raise. But that’s not enough,” he said.
As Capital Brief previously reported, climate tech startups are among the most punished by the lengthening timelines to Series B rounds. The capital crunch is pushing companies offshore, into debt or into liquidation.
Fremantle Seaweed, founded in 2020, has raised $4 million in seed funding from angel investors and equity crowdfunding, and received a $4 million grant from Western Australia’s Investment Attraction Fund.
The license opens opportunities for commercial sales. Fremantle Seaweed expects its first two planned ocean farms to produce 576 tonnes of supplement annually to feed 25,000 cattle in Western Australia.
Though not everyone is convinced of the benefits of asparagopsis. Murdoch University PhD candidate Ben Camer-Pesci has raised concerns about its health effects on cattle, drawing on Dutch research that found intestinal damage in animals fed the supplement.
De Cuyper and Baker don’t believe the findings stand up to scrutiny, arguing the study dosed animals 20 times higher than the recommended amount.
Baker notes that more than 20 peer-reviewed research papers from CSIRO demonstrate the safety of the seaweed. “They are very much a small voice compared to the data that’s been presented to date,” he said.
The company operates its 32-hectare seaweed farm off the coast of Fremantle, as well as onshore tanked infrastructure in regional Western Australia. It’s looking to expand to a 3000 hectare seaweed farm by leveraging decommissioned assets from oil and gas producers.
“I have sort of tried to coin this term that asparagopsis could be the iron ore of the seas. There’s this amazing opportunity to transition away from Western Australia having a really resource-based industry,” De Cuyper said.
Cracking that opportunity requires cracking producers who grass-feed cattle. Most of Australia’s 29 million head never enter a feedlot, but the majority of beef cattle pass through one for 40 to 60 days before reaching market weight. De Cuyper sees this as an essential step towards scaling his product’s reach.
Read more in the Capital Brief’s article here.