Six-figure funding for bioenergy business
A company that produces a natural blue algae extract with uses including food colouring has secured investment of more than £500,000 to develop its technology.
Scottish Bioenergy, which is based in Roslin outside Edinburgh, closed an over-subscribed funding round with private equity firm Kelvin Capital and angel investment group Investing Women.
It has developed what is known as phycocyanin that can be used as an anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory as well as an internationally approved blue food colouring suitable for products such as sweets and cocktails. Global demand for phycocyanin is expected to reach nearly £400 million by 2020 on demand from companies including Mars, Nestle and Kraft.
Scottish Bioenergy was founded in 2007 and is now ready to scale up. Chief executive David Van Alstyne said the market for phycocyanin “is growing rapidly with limited worldwide supply and [our] method provides a scalable system, consistent outputs and predictable costs”. Jackie Waring, founder and chief executive of Investing Women, said Scottish Bioenergy has vast international potential and is targeting a market with few competitors. She also praised director of operations Polly Van Alstyne, one of three winners of this year’s Accelerateher Awards.
John Mcnicol, investment director at Kelvin Capital, said the Glasgow-based investment fund is “very much looking forward to working with Scottish Bioenergy through this next ground breaking phase of development”.