#18: Kaly with Daniel Hillman - Seaweed meets finance: thoughts and perspectives from an impact investor and entrepreneur, existing gaps, creating a scalable model and the path to sustainable growth.

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Kaly is a natural capital operating platform whose mission is to scale the production of regeneratively farmed seaweed in Scotland and develop new routes to market through higher-value processing using a community-based approach.

Co-Founder of Kaly, Daniel Hillman is an experienced impact investor and entrepreneur, most recently as Director of Investments and Business Development for Waterfund, a private investment firm he helped create focused on solving global water scarcity through investments in technology and infrastructure. In this capacity, Daniel built and scaled a water desalination and distribution business in the Middle East and led venture capital investments within food and ag-tech companies in the United States. Prior to Waterfund Daniel worked at Hanson Asset Management in London, advising family offices on direct investments with a real assets focus. He also advises closely-held businesses in the UK and the US on implementing growth and M&A strategies.

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[3:00] Expectations from Seagriculture Conference.

[4:45] The steep learning curve to join the seaweed industry.

[5:50] Bridging the gap between finance and the seaweed industry.

[8:00] How nature dictates what a sustainable growth would look like.

[9:50] Challenges and frustration worth "throwing money at".

[12:20] What Kaly is not going to do and what they will rely on partners.

[14:10] Moving from vertical integration to specialisation in a mature industry.

[17:30] Establishing a network of commercial agreements with local creel fishermen.

[23:00] Kaly's products and who is going to buy them.

[24:55] "Big Ag" getting interested about seaweed.

[26:10] Biostimulant trial set-up and what Kaly is hoping to learn.

[30:05] Nutrient credits as a way to create an extra income stream.

[36:00] Final thoughts about enthusiasm and passion in the industry.

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Useful Links:

Daniel Hillman: Linkedin

Kaly Group: Website, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.

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Get in touch on ⁠LinkedIn⁠, ⁠Twitter⁠, or by emailing me directly at [e-mail] - Please send in your feedback: what do you want to hear more or less of? any suggestions? Would love to hear what you think!

Special thanks to my brother Riccardo, who made this episode possible by travelling with me to Trondheim (Norway), acting as technical director and helping hugely in making sure that both live interviews went as smoothly as they did.