SEaB Energy Rebuilt Its EIC Accelerator Digester, No New Sites

SEaB Energy builds small anaerobic digesters inside shipping containers: the Flexibuster for food waste and the Muckbuster for manure and slurry, which turn organic waste into electricity, heat, water and fertiliser at the site where the waste arises. Its operating company, SEAB Power Ltd of London, was selected in the EIC Accelerator pilot's 7 October 2020 cut-off for a grant-only award, according to the European Commission's list of selected companies, which names no other beneficiary for the project. The project, MicroRenew, received an EU contribution of €2,134,125 towards a total cost of €3,048,750 and ran from 1 February 2021 to 31 January 2023, according to CORDIS. Its goal was to improve the manufacturability of the Flexibuster, speed up installation and prepare it for "large scale commercialisation".

The company's final report to the EU says the team "completely overhauled the design" of the Flexibuster, with more capacity, a new control system, bolt-on modules, simpler installation and "product certification in multiple markets", according to the CORDIS reporting page. The filed accounts tell a different story about what came after: average staff, including directors, fell from 11 in the year to June 2023 to 3 in the year to June 2025, and cash fell to £8,601, according to the accounts filed at Companies House. The last three sets of accounts state that the directors have identified "material uncertainties" that "may cast significant doubt" about the company's ability to continue as a going concern.

A Company Still Filing, With Little Left in the Bank

SEAB Power Ltd is active on the register. It filed its accounts for the year to 30 June 2025 on 3 October 2025 and a confirmation statement dated 2 March 2026, and it moved its registered office from Berkhamsted to Paul Street in London on 30 September 2025, according to its Companies House record. Nicolas Sassow, a director since 2018, stepped down as director on 16 December 2025; Sandra Sassow remains director and company secretary, and both are listed as persons with significant control, according to the officers register. The company website lists news items into September 2026, including selection in June 2026 for Scale For ClimateTech Cohort 7, presented by SecondMuse and the New York State energy agency NYSERDA, and it gives an office address at 48 Wall Street in New York as well as the London address.

The website also claims 9,000 tons of waste converted with the Flexibuster, 2,650 tonnes of CO2 offset and more than 1.9 million cubic metres of biogas produced. It does not say over what period, or at how many sites, and none of these figures could be verified independently. A profile on the Unreasonable Group network lists the company at 1 to 5 employees and says it has "raised over £6M in grants and equity investment", in line with the staff numbers in the accounts.

Born From an Administration

SEaB Energy has an older history than its EIC beneficiary. The first company to carry the name, SEaB Energy Ltd (company 06354529, incorporated in 2007 and renamed SEaB Energy in 2009), went into administration on 16 April 2018, with Begbies Traynor appointed as administrators, according to The Gazette, which describes it as a "manufacturer of waste-to-energy technology" formerly at Southampton Science Park. The administration moved into a creditors' voluntary liquidation on 5 April 2019, and the company was dissolved on 21 October 2022, according to its Companies House insolvency record.

SEAB Power Ltd was incorporated on 1 June 2018, during that administration. Its first accounts, for the period to 30 June 2019, state that on 6 July 2018 it "acquired the assets, including intellectual property and stock, of Seab Energy Limited for an initial consideration of £200,000" plus an earn-out of at least £50,000, and that the directors Sandra and Nicolas Sassow lent the company £200,000 at 4% interest, according to the filed accounts. Sandra and Nicolas Sassow had also been directors of the old company until 28 June 2019, according to its Companies House record. The patents and trademarks bought in 2018 still make up most of SEAB Power's balance sheet: intangible assets of £888,991 against net assets of £296,766 in June 2025.

The Flexibuster was in use before the EIC award. In June 2016 the old company installed a unit at a Modelo Continente supermarket in Gaia, near Porto, sized for about 600 kg of inedible food waste a day, according to Waste Management World. The Solar Impulse Foundation, which gave the Flexibuster its Efficient Solution label in December 2024, lists a 2019 installation for the waste company Sepur at Thiverval-Grignon in France, able to process 2.5 tonnes of organic waste a day.

How the Container Digester Works

Anaerobic digestion lets bacteria break down organic waste without oxygen, producing biogas that can be burned for electricity and heat, and a digestate used as fertiliser. Most digesters are large central plants fed by trucks. SEaB's approach is to put a small, automated plant in one or more shipping containers at the waste source: a supermarket, hospital, food factory or farm. CORDIS gives the Flexibuster's range as 500 to 3,000 kg of waste a day, and the Solar Impulse listing gives 500 to 5,000 kg. The pitch is that the site avoids hauling waste away and uses the energy itself. The trade-off is scale: small plants carry higher costs per tonne than large ones, and the company's claim on the Solar Impulse listing that "costumers have 1-3 years payback" could not be checked against any published customer data.

What MicroRenew Promised and What Is Public

The CORDIS objective says SEaB was "pilot testing our TRL6 system" and wanted to improve manufacturability, make installations faster, meet new IT standards and bring the Flexibuster to "large scale commercialisation". The TRL6 description sits oddly with the units installed in Portugal in 2016 and France in 2019. The final periodic report, covering February 2022 to January 2023, claims "excellent results for each of the project objectives". It lists no new customers, sites or sales. The CORDIS results page lists two deliverables: one headed "HAZOP, DSEAR, UKCA, CE, UL, CUL, ISO Carbon footprint analysis MTBF analysis" with the note "all concluded", and one of dissemination material.

The redesign itself can only be confirmed from the company's own report. The deliverable names UK (UKCA), European (CE) and North American (UL and cUL) marks, but no certificate or certifying body is published, so the certifications could not be checked. No new Flexibuster installation since the project ended could be found in public sources, and the staff and cash figures in the accounts point to a smaller business, not a scaled one. That makes the delivery partial: the engineering work was reported, the commercial rollout was not.

1. Redesign the Flexibuster for easier manufacturingReportedCompany's final report; no independent confirmation.
2. Faster, simpler site installationReportedClaimed in the report; no installation since 2023 announced.
3. Product certification in several marketsReportedUKCA, CE, UL and cUL listed as concluded on the results page; no certificates published.
4. Large scale commercialisationNot achievedStaff fell to 3 and cash to £8,601 by June 2025.

The Money Around the Grant

Two corporate investors came in around the EIC award. Enagás Emprende, the venture arm of the Spanish gas grid operator Enagás, took a 13% stake in November 2019, with the aim of supporting product development and making equipment in Spain, according to an Enagás press release and Capital Riesgo. Neither gives the amount. In August 2022 Axon Partners Group, a Madrid-listed investment firm, announced a capital increase in SEAB Power through Ventures EPM, the corporate venture programme of the Colombian utility EPM, aimed at expansion in Latin America, according to Axon and its filing with BME Growth. The amount was not disclosed.

The accounts show the effect. Share premium rose from £1,901,145 in June 2021 to £3,123,786 in June 2023, partly through the conversion of a founders' loan and a loan from Enagás into shares in July 2022, and then stopped rising. Accumulated losses grew from £267,244 in June 2019 to £2,827,027 in June 2025. The 2022 accounts also restated the prior year to write off £303,538 of bad debt, which raised the reported 2020/21 loss to £705,375. The company is not in the EIC Fund portfolio: none of the 319 companies on its 16 pages checked on 18 October 2026 is SEaB, as expected for a grant-only award.

Since the project ended, the most visible commercial lead has been Shimizu. In July 2024 the Japanese construction group picked SEaB as the winner of a London reverse pitch on net zero buildings and invited it to its NOVARE innovation centre in Singapore for talks, according to Renewable Energy Magazine and Envirotec. Shimizu continued talks with three other participants as well. No contract or installation with Shimizu has been announced since.

Where It Fits in European Policy

Food waste is a policy target in Europe. The Landfill Directive limits the share of municipal waste landfilled to 10% by 2035 and requires member states to divert biodegradable waste from landfill, according to the European Commission, and the 2025 revision of the Waste Framework Directive adds binding food waste reduction targets, according to the Commission's Waste Framework Directive page. The REPowerEU plan calls for more biomethane from "waste and residues rather than from food and feedstocks", according to the Commission's biomethane page. Small digesters at the waste source fit those goals, but SEaB's evidence of use in Europe rests on installations from before the grant.

The Verdict

SEaB Energy and the EIC have not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on public records and published statements, linked throughout.