Green Sealice: 7 Years After Its EIC Accelerator Delousing Grant

Sea lice are small parasites that feed on the skin of farmed salmon, and they are one of the costliest problems in Norwegian fish farming. Green Sealice Solutions AS, a company from Mandal on Norway's south coast, was set up in September 2018 to remove them with a boat. Its vessel pumps fish out of the pen, washes the lice off with brushes and low-pressure water, and returns the fish to the sea, without chemicals or medicines.

Nine months after its founding, the company was selected in the 5 June 2019 cut-off of the EIC SME Instrument Phase 2, the Horizon 2020 programme that became the EIC Accelerator. The European Commission's winner list names two Norwegian beneficiaries for the project DeBug: Green Sealice Solutions AS of Mandal and Skamik AS of Ottersøy, the maker of the delousing machine. CORDIS puts the EU contribution at €2,175,687.50 towards a total cost of €3,108,125, of which €1,386,000 went to Green Sealice Solutions as coordinator and €789,687.50 to Skamik. The money was a grant only. Seven years later, the company still runs one vessel and has five registered employees.

Where the Company Stands Now

Green Sealice Solutions is an active company. The Brønnøysund Register Centre shows no bankruptcy, liquidation or forced dissolution, accounts filed up to 2025, and five employees reported in September 2026. Jahn Åsvald Einarsmo is listed as chief executive and Roy Kjøstvedt as chair. North Data lists annual reports for every year from 2018 to 2025. The company's website offers delousing in Norway, Iceland and Scotland from one boat, MS SealiceHunter, and names Einarsmo as the contact.

The leadership has changed several times. In September 2019 the chief executive was Frode Ramvik, according to iLaks. A company profile in Open Access Government in March 2021 named Martin Ullebust as chief executive. In June 2024 iLaks called Einarsmo the chair; the register now lists him as chief executive. The reasons for these changes are not public.

The Technology: Brushes, Water and a Pre-Treatment Step

Norway's salmon farmers fight lice with medicines, warm water (thermal delousing), fresh water, cleaner fish and mechanical washing. Mechanical systems avoid chemicals but put the fish through pumping and handling. Skamik developed its first prototype of a mechanical delousing system in 2012, according to the CORDIS fact sheet, and its patented machine is the core of the Green Sealice vessel.

In the SkaMik 1.5 line, the fish are pumped from the pen, separated from the water and passed through a flushing chamber, a brushing chamber and a final rinse. The pass through the machine takes 1.5 seconds and the whole process 15 seconds, the company's website says; the 2021 profile gave "less than 10 seconds" for the treatment unit. The removed lice are caught in a double filter before the water goes back to the sea.

DeBug was meant to add something new on top: a pre-treatment unit developed by Green Sealice Solutions. In 2018 the company prototyped a treatment that paralyses the lice before they are washed off, and the results "showed immediate paralysis of the sea lice", it told Innovation News Network in December 2019. The 2021 profile said the unit had been tested at a Norwegian research centre with "unprecedented results". The CORDIS report names that centre as Nofima and shows a "heater reservoir" rigged with the DeBug equipment. The project promised a modular system with capacity of more than 270 tonnes and removal of "up to 100%" of lice. Today the website lists the option of "hybrid treatment with thermal pre-flushing" on the vessel. Whether that is the DeBug unit, and whether it has been used commercially, is not stated.

What the EIC Project Promised, and What the Record Shows

DeBug ran from 1 December 2019 to 31 May 2022, 30 months after a six-month extension, according to the final report on CORDIS. The first work package, prototype testing at Nofima, was finished "~on-time and budget". The second, large-scale piloting, was "delayed and some activities not executed as planned". A deal with a Norwegian farmer for live-fish trials stalled in 2021; another was signed in 2022. The partners designed and built the full-scale system, installed it on the vessel and used it in commercial delousing, documenting "all parts of the system except the pre-treatment unit".

The pre-treatment unit, the part of DeBug that was new, needed approval from the Norwegian Food Safety Authority for its final combined test. When the project ended, staged tests with 150 fish, then 10,000 fish, then three commercial pens were still "scheduled in the next 2-3 months", depending on lice levels. The 2021 profile had promised to offer the system "as a commercial service to the market by early 2022". The partners said they were discussing a second full-scale DeBug vessel and new installations in Norway and the UK. None of these steps has been announced since, by the company, by Skamik or in the trade press found for this article. The website still shows one vessel.

1. Prototype pre-treatment testsDeliveredNofima tests finished on time, per CORDIS.
2. Full-scale system on the vesselDeliveredInstalled and in commercial use; 28,000 tonnes treated by May 2022.
3. Validation of the pre-treatment unitNot announcedOutstanding at project end; no result announced since.
4. Commercial DeBug service by early 2022Not announcedNo launch announced; website mentions only an optional thermal pre-flush.
5. Second vessel and global salesNot achievedStill one vessel in 2026.
6. On timeLateExtended by six months to 30 months.

The Money

Green Sealice Solutions earns its money from delousing jobs, and its revenue moves with the vessel's order book. It made a pre-tax loss of NOK 2.1 million in 2022 and NOK 4.0 million in 2023 on revenue of NOK 22.5 million and NOK 21.9 million, according to iLaks, which wrote in June 2024 that the company had made losses in each of the previous three years. In 2024 revenue rose to NOK 29.8 million and the net result to a profit of NOK 5.47 million. In 2025 revenue fell to NOK 13.56 million and the company lost NOK 2.64 million, according to the filed accounts, figures that iLaks reported in July 2026 as its third loss in four years. The reasons for the 2025 drop are not public; iLaks said it sought comment from Einarsmo.

The balance sheet is not in danger. At the end of 2025 the company had equity of NOK 29.0 million, debt of NOK 10.6 million and NOK 20.9 million in the bank. Paid-in equity stands at NOK 33.9 million, and accumulated results are negative at NOK 4.85 million. The share capital was last raised in August 2021, according to the register. No later funding round has been reported. Wage costs fell from NOK 7.75 million in 2023 to NOK 3.83 million in 2025, a sign that the operation has become smaller.

Why Europe Should Care

Lice are a limit on growth for salmon farming. The DeBug application cited a fall of 63,000 tonnes in Norway's harvest between 2016 and 2017 and a rise in the share of Scottish farms affected by lice from 28% to 49% in one year, according to CORDIS. The European Commission's strategic guidelines for EU aquaculture for 2021 to 2030, adopted in May 2021, set four objectives, among them building resilience and competitiveness and taking part in the green transition, according to the Commission's summary. A delousing method that works without chemicals or medicines speaks to both, provided it keeps fish losses low. Norway is not an EU member, but Norwegian companies could apply to Horizon 2020 as an associated country, and four Norwegian projects were funded in that round, iLaks reported, citing Innovation Norway.

The Verdict

This article is based on public records and published statements, linked throughout. Green Sealice Solutions and Skamik were not asked for comment.