Silfurgen ehf. is establishing a land-based hatchery for selective breeding and production of mussel larvae and spat for sale world-wide. The selective breeding will be based on state-of-the art bioscience. Besides being selectively bred, the larvae will be equipped with special bioscience-based features such as infertility. The larvae hatchery takes advantage of Iceland’s unique environment for such an operation utilizing lava-filtered clean and stable seawater from boreholes, geothermal heat as well as economical and sustainable electricity. This feature, coupled with appropriate technology, enables reliable supply of larvae and spat in every week of the year. The hatchery will be close to the Keflavik international airport and the larvae can be shipped to customers world-wide safely and at low cost. Within the bivalve sector, mussels have been shown to be economical as cultivation animals. They have high protein content, high protein quality, and appeal to many consumers. commercial fertilizer, and has close to zero carbon footprint (may even sequester CO₂). This is in contrast with significant negative environmental impact of most other animal protein production. Many branches of the bivalve sector require transformation through technology development. New technologies in bioscience, IT, communications, automation, and aquaculture have emerged and brought down in costs in recent years enabling new technology development in bivalve culture which was not possible before. Even though the present focus is on mussels, larvae of other bivalve species can (and will) also be produced as demanded by the market.

Silfurgen ehf. is owned by Dr. Júlíus Kristinsson and his family. The mission of Silfurgen is to take on and invest in projects that address the protein crises the world is facing in commercially and environmentally sustainable manner. Kristinsson holds a Ph.D. in biology, focussing on physiology of Atlantic salmon. He served for ten years as CEO of Silfurlax, an ocean ranching company on the west coast of Iceland.  Silfurlax established an operation for selective breeding of Atlantic salmon in 1986 where Kristinsson developed a technology to control the time of spawning of salmon. The spawning facility, located in Hafnir, Iceland, is a leading supplier in the Atlantic salmon industry, delivering disease-free salmon ova, world-wide, every week of the year. The present owners are Benchmark Genetics. Kristinsson is one of the founders of ORF Genetics hf. in 2001 where he served as a CFO and CEO. ORF Genetics  is global pioneer in producing high-quality recombinant proteins in plants to significantly contribute to solving pressing societal challenges, such as production of growth factors that are critical ingredients for production of cell cultured meat. Bioeffect ehf., is an offspring of ORF Genetics that produces skin care products containing bioactive growth factors, produced in barley using plant biotechnology and grown in a greenhouse in Iceland - with EGF (Epidermal Growth Factor) being the best-known growth factor. In 2022 Kristinsson decided to focus on developing more sustainable methods for producing high-quality protein rich food, with a minimum carbon footprint.  He chose cultivation of bivalves, as they feed on the ocean’s phytoplankton, which is a huge but underutilised resource, for production of high-quality protein rich food.  Bivalves require no agricultural land, no synthetic fertilizer, and have almost no carbon footprint, even causing permanent net carbon capture. The proteins from bivalves can replace currently produced animal proteins that require significant agricultural land, vast amounts of water, synthetic fertilizers, and have a high carbon footprint. Silfurgen aims at enabling prosperity and growth in bivalve cultivation/production through technology development, with selective breeding and production of bivalve larvae and through its daughter company, Marbot ehf., which is focussing on development and production of automatic gear for bivalve cultivation at sea. Julius Kristinsson is an active member in the Icelandic start-up community as a mentor in Klak Icelandic Startups (Business accelerator), and a board member of Strandbunadur, organizing the annual Aqua-Ice aquaculture conference in Iceland.