Skamik After the EIC Accelerator: Salmon Delousing Sales Rebound

Sea lice are small parasites that feed on the skin of farmed salmon, and they are the costliest health problem in Norwegian fish farming. Skamik, a machine builder based in Nærøysund on the coast of Trøndelag, makes equipment that pumps live salmon through chambers where soft rotating brushes and low-pressure water jets wash the lice off, without drugs or chemicals. In the European Innovation Council's 5 June 2019 cut-off it was one of two Norwegian companies selected for a shared project called DeBug, according to the Commission's list of EIC SME Instrument Phase 2 winners, which names both Skamik AS of Ottersøy and Green Sealice Solutions AS of Mandal.

Seven years later Skamik is profitable and busy. Its filed accounts show revenue of NOK 167.4 million and a net profit of NOK 54.8 million in 2025. The add-on the EU paid to develop, however, does not appear in its product range.

Where Skamik Stands Now

Skamik is an active, registered limited company with no insolvency or liquidation entry, according to the Brønnøysund Register Centre. It filed its 2025 accounts, lists 10 employees, and in August 2026 updated its board, which is chaired by Ole Ekroll Sørdahl and includes co-founder Frode Normann Mikalsen. The data aggregator Funnelfeedr also shows the company as active with 10 employees. Its registered address is in Kolvereid, while its production unit at Purkholmen on Ottersøy, near Rørvik, employs 8 people.

The company's news page reports steady orders. In March 2026 it announced that SalMar, through the wellboat operator Sølvtrans, would fit six Skamik 1.5 units on each of two new wellboats, Ronja Spirit and Ronja Follafoss, with a combined capacity of 300 tonnes of fish an hour per boat, which it called the first stand-alone installation of the machine on a wellboat. This order is reported only by Skamik and could not be confirmed elsewhere. A second post the same month cites the service company Buksér og Berging reporting 95% average removal of mobile lice and adult females in its 2025 treatments.

Skamik and the register disagree on when the company began. The company's own page says Geir Skarstad and Frode Mikalsen founded it in 2009. The register shows the legal entity was incorporated in 1998 under another name and took the Skamik name in April 2011. According to iLaks, the concept started as a school project at Val upper secondary school around 2000.

The Technology: Brushes and Water Instead of Drugs

Fish farms treat lice with medicines, warm water, fresh water baths or mechanical flushing, and Skamik's own announcements describe combining its machines with fresh water or medicinal treatments. Skamik's approach is mechanical. Fish are pumped out of the pen, dewatered, sent through a chamber where rotating brushes and low-pressure jets loosen the lice, and returned through hoses, with the water filtered to catch the removed lice. On Coastal Server, a workboat serving Grieg Seafood's farms in British Columbia, the whole process takes 15 seconds, with 1.5 seconds in the chamber, and one unit handles up to 100 tonnes of fish an hour, Fish Farming Expert reported in December 2021.

The Wellfighter line applies the same principle on wellboats: high water volume at low pressure, with four delousing lines per unit. The Wellfighter RS500, shown in 2023, handles "approximately 200 tonnes of fish per hour", Skarstad told iLaks, and needs one unit per pen where earlier solutions needed several.

DeBug: Who Did What, and What CORDIS Shows

DeBug was coordinated by Green Sealice Solutions AS of Mandal, a delousing service company that operated the vessel MV SealiceHunter. Skamik was the only other partner. CORDIS records the grant agreement as signed on 11 November 2019 and the project as running from 1 December 2019 to 31 May 2022, with a total cost of €3,108,125 and an EU contribution of €2,175,687.50, according to the project fact sheet. Green Sealice Solutions received €1,386,000 against costs of €1,980,000; Skamik received €789,687.50 against costs of €1,128,125.

The split of work is clear from the sources. The project was to "further improve the Skamik de-lousing system by including a new sub-system developed by Green Sea Lice Solutions", pilot it in real conditions and start selling it, CORDIS says. In an article in March 2021, Green Sealice Solutions' chief executive Martin Ullebust described that sub-system as a pre-treatment unit that fish pass through before the Skamik 1.5 chamber. The final report says Skamik worked with its suppliers to deliver the components and assemblies and install the system on the vessel, while Green Sealice Solutions used the vessel to document performance and build a client network. In 2019 the consortium put capacity at 80 to 120 tonnes an hour, expandable to 270, according to Innovation News Network.

The report is candid. The project was extended by six months to 30 months. Prototype tests of the pre-treatment unit at the research institute Nofima were completed roughly on time. The full-scale system was built and installed on MV SealiceHunter and had treated more than 28,000 tonnes of salmon and trout. But a fish farmer willing to test the pre-treatment unit on live fish was found only in 2022, after the Norwegian Food Safety Authority's approval, and that test, from 150 fish to 10,000 fish and then three commercial pens, was still "scheduled in the next 2-3 months" when the project ended. The report says "not all objectives have been met 100%" and that the partners were talking to potential clients about a second vessel.

1. Pre-treatment prototype tests at NofimaDeliveredCompleted roughly on time and budget, per the CORDIS report.
2. Full-scale system on a vesselDeliveredInstalled on MV SealiceHunter; over 28,000 tonnes of fish treated.
3. Combined test of the pre-treatment unit on live fishNot announcedStill pending at project end; no result published since.
4. Second vessel and global salesNot announcedNo DeBug installation or product on Skamik's website.
5. Finish in 24 monthsLateExtended by six months to May 2022.

The 9% share of the salmon treatment market that the proposal projected cannot be checked, because no DeBug-branded sales have been reported by either company. Skamik's current products, including a Wellfighter version with heated water recirculation, are not linked to DeBug in any public source found.

What Skamik Has Achieved Since the Award

Skamik's business boomed during the project. In March 2021 Frøy signed for what iLaks called Skamik's largest order to date, a delousing system for a converted 70-metre supply vessel. In December 2021 Skarstad said the company expected to quadruple revenue from NOK 50 million in 2020 to NOK 200 million, according to Fish Farming Expert. It came close: 2021 revenue was NOK 191.9 million with a pre-tax profit of NOK 73.5 million, iLaks reported, and the company sold 24 units that year, according to iLaks's November 2022 report.

Then the market stopped. After Norway's government proposed a resource rent tax on salmon farming in autumn 2022, Skarstad said Skamik lost several contracts "practically overnight" worth as much as its whole expected 2022 revenue of NOK 50 to 60 million. The Storting adopted the tax at a 25% rate on 31 May 2023, according to WeAreAquaculture and Orbitax. Filed revenue was NOK 76.7 million in 2023 and NOK 58.2 million in 2024, before jumping to NOK 167.4 million in 2025.

The Money

Skamik has stayed profitable through the cycle. The register's accounts show a net profit of NOK 13.4 million in 2023, NOK 4.6 million in 2024 and NOK 54.8 million in 2025. Payroll costs were NOK 10.6 million, NOK 10.7 million and NOK 13.5 million, so the 2025 rebound came without a jump in staff. Year-end cash was NOK 37.0 million in 2025, against debt of NOK 64.8 million, most of it short term. Equity rose only from NOK 21.1 million to NOK 26.0 million in 2025, so most of that year's profit left the company's equity; the free register data does not show the dividend.

Skamik has never raised venture capital. Its owners are industry players: the company lists SalMar ASA and Moen-Gruppen among its shareholders, and in 2022 iLaks reported that Moen-gruppen and NTS, then being taken over by SalMar, together held 49.8% of the shares. Its machines are sold through Moen Marin, a builder of aquaculture vessels. It is not on the European Innovation Council's list of EIC Fund investments, which is expected for a grant-only award. CORDIS lists no other EU project for Skamik.

Why Europe Should Care

Norway is outside the EU but takes part in its research programmes, which is how two Norwegian firms could win an EIC grant. The Commission's strategic guidelines for EU aquaculture for 2021 to 2030 aim for a more resilient, competitive and greener sector, and for the first time include a section on animal welfare with work towards fish-welfare indicators, as Eurogroup for Animals noted. Delousing without drugs and with low stress fits both aims, and Skamik's own sales show the method is in wide commercial use.

The Verdict

Skamik has not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on public records, company statements and EU project data, linked throughout.