Lough Egish, County Monaghan-headquartered marine ingredients supplier Bio-Marine Ingredients Ireland Ltd. (BII) has raised EUR 5 million (USD 5.8 million) in private equity funding from investors, sourced by its corporate finance partner Cantor Fitzgerald Ireland, The Sunday Times has reported.
The money is to be used to bring a manufacturing facility into production and to fund working capital.
It was reported that Cantor also raised EUR 3 million (USD 3.5 million) for the project in 2018, and that the total investment has now exceeded EUR 20 million (USD 23.2 million).
BII, which is backed by the Killybegs Fishermen’s Organisation and Norwegian firm Biomarine Science Technology, supplies fish protein hydrolysates, lipids, and calcium to the international markets. These products, which are potential ingredients for human nutrition, functional foods, nutraceuticals, pet food, and animal feeds, are converted from the proteins and oils from locally-caught Atlantic fish species with relatively low commercial value.
Most of its raw material is purchased from processing plants in Killybegs, with around 750,000 metric tons (MT) of blue whiting fished off the Irish coast annually.
