This week, we are excited to share with you an interview with Vala Valthorsdottir, the CEO of Aurora Abalone. Aurora Abalone is an Icelandic on-shore abalone farming company doing some pretty extraordinary things. I have to admit, I also had to check first what kind of animal an abalone is. The company has recently barely survived massive lava flows (welcome to Iceland!), and is now looking to scale its operations.

Ilkka: Please introduce yourself and your company.

Vala: I studied law, and eventually decided it was not my future. I worked at the National Power Company for six years, where I was a Business Development Manager. I learned about the potential of geothermal, and after a few extra steps, learning the commercial side of things as well, I was offered the position of CEO at Aurora Abalone, where we indeed take advantage of the geothermal energy in a very effective way. 

Aurora Abalone was founded in 2007. Early on, we were just developing the farming process. It was not until 2022 that professional investors came into the project: there among a VC and a very experienced aquaculture advisor here in Iceland, who is now the chairman.

At our Grindavik facility, we have 3,200 sqm and produce a few tens of tons of abalone, and it serves as the base for a much larger project we are developing. The new grow-out facility in Reykjanes, about 20 minutes away, will give us room to scale to at least 1,000 tonnes of production. 

In December 2023, I joined to lead the scaling. But then two months later, the volcanic eruptions happened, and the whole town was evacuated. I ended up with a very different project, but we have come out stronger on the other side. We decided to restart in January 2025 and take the first step in our scale-up, growing juveniles that can produce 300 tonnes (it takes 3 years to reach harvesting size), and we have been executing on that plan. We secured 3.5 million USD in just two months, which showed our investors had strong confidence in this operation. 

We are really resilient in Iceland. We are very experienced at navigating these situations, and even though we cannot fully control them, we manage them well.

Ilkka: Why should people eat abalone, and what is the business case?

Vala: They are sustainable and healthy, and they taste and look amazing. There are over 100 species of abalone in the world, 15 of which are farmed. We work with two: the Californian abalone from America, and the Japanese Ezo. 

We are solving a real problem. Today, sustainability in wild abalone is very difficult. Ocean pH is changing, temperatures are fluctuating, and the kelp macro-algae that abalone feed on is declining. Even in Taiwan, one of the world's largest producers, production has dropped by 50–60%, with some areas down 70%. Wild abalone populations in California came close to extinction and were only reopened to limited harvesting after a 10-year closure. In South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, production is tightly regulated. We are one of the only abalone operations in the world that fully manages all environmental factors.

Ilkka: How does your technology differ from the competition?

Vala: Our system is closed-loop. We use lava-filtered seawater, use natural geothermal heat to condition it, and manage pH, salinity, and temperature precisely. In the first 3–4 months, the juveniles live only on micro-algae, and then we transition them to feeds that also promote growth. We are one of the only land-based production facilities in the world that controls all environmental parameters in the production. We can let them grow to any size and produce a consistent supply year-round. The geothermal resource is highly accessible and cost-efficient. We don't need energy-intensive systems to run it, so it is a CapEx-friendly project.

Our R&D director came to visit us from South Africa in February 2024 and joined the company because he had never seen abalones like ours. When you filter lava seawater, the water comes into production almost sterile: completely clean, with no organics. We have actually had trouble measuring the seawater flow because all measurement technology is based on detecting particles, and ours has almost none. Japanese and Chinese groups who have visited have said they have never tasted such fresh, high-quality abalone.

We are bringing a consistent, year-round supply to market and are well-positioned for both the European and US markets. The global market is around 300,000 tonnes of production annually. Around 96–97% of that is produced and consumed in China. They export very little — some to South Korea and neighboring countries, and a small amount to Hong Kong. I visited China in November last year and could see they have developed their production significantly, including hybrids combining green abalone from Mexico with the Japanese Ezo to accelerate growth.

Japan was exporting iso to China until 2022, when it was restricted, and it was getting around $ 200 per kilo. There is clearly a lot of opportunity in China, but it is a challenging market to enter, so we are not prioritizing it initially. We want to establish our brand in Europe and the US first.

We cannot replicate our economics elsewhere because the geothermal and seawater conditions are unique to Iceland. Logistics is always a challenge here, but it is fortunate that Reykjanes is 15 minutes from an international airport. Abalone can survive for 50 hours without water, making air freight viable. As we scale, we are also adding processed products like canned and dried abalone, which are big markets in Asia, particularly Hong Kong, as well as the US and Australia.

We used our last funding round to build out the Grindavík facility and start production. We have a pre-design underway for the Reykjanes grow-out facility, and we started the fundraising process in February. 

Investors can contact us via email: Vala Valthorsdottir, CEO ([email protected]), or Jon Thor Sigurvinsson, Arctica Finance ([email protected]).