Sources : https://koabiotech.com/

Fish farmers often struggle with serious disease outbreaks that can destroy large parts of their stock and cause major financial losses. The biggest problem is that current methods for detecting pathogens are too slow: samples must be sent to external labs, and results can take 5 to 10 days. By the time the results arrive, the disease has often already spread. Because of this, many farmers use antibiotics too often as a precaution, which raises costs and harms the environment. Another challenge is the lack of real-time monitoring; most farms have no system to detect early signs of infection or changes in water quality. This means they can only react after the damage is done. Farmers need a fast, automatic, and affordable solution that helps them detect problems early and protect their fish. KOA Biotech solves these pain points by offering continuous, on-site pathogen monitoring, giving farmers early alerts and helping them reduce losses, antibiotic use, and environmental impact.

KOA Biotech is a Barcelona-based biotech company that develops autonomous biosensor devices for diagnosing waterborne infections in fish farms. Their mission is to help aquaculture producers detect pathogens early before they cause major outbreaks so as to reduce fish mortality, lower antibiotic use, and improve sustainability. The founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of KOA Biotech is Sira Mogas Díez, a biotechnologist and entrepreneur from Spain. She established KOA Biotech as a spin-off from Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona). Under her leadership, KOA Biotech has grown into a multidisciplinary team that combines expertise in biotechnology, data science, hardware engineering, and aquaculture, dedicated to bringing real-time, sustainable disease monitoring to the global fish farming industry.

KOA Biotech’s main product is an autonomous biosensor platform designed to detect and monitor pathogens in aquaculture systems in real time. The device often referred to as KOA Lens integrates biotechnology, electronics, and artificial intelligence to continuously analyze water samples directly on-site, eliminating the need to send them to external laboratories. It works by using living biosensor elements that react specifically to harmful microorganisms in the water; these reactions are then converted into digital signals, processed by proprietary algorithms, and translated into actionable alerts for fish farmers. This allows early detection of bacterial or viral infections often days before visible symptoms appear helping reduce fish mortality and the unnecessary use of antibiotics. Offered through a “Sensing-as-a-Service” model, KOA Biotech provides clients with continuous data insights, predictive analytics, and maintenance support, enabling aquaculture operations to improve sustainability, efficiency, and biosecurity.

Key features and operating principles:

• Hybrid biosensing technology: It uses living biosensor components that respond to specific pathogens in the water, combined with a microelectronic interface to convert those biological signals into digital data. 
• Continuous monitoring: The system captures water samples repeatedly (reportedly up to 10× more frequently than conventional lab sampling) to catch early signs of infection. 
• Threshold alerts & analytics: Proprietary algorithms evaluate the data and trigger early-warning alerts when pathogen levels exceed safe thresholds, enabling farmers to act preemptively. 
• Reduced turnaround time: By doing measurements on-site, KOA aims to reduce the latency inherent in sending samples to external labs (5–10 days) to as short as 24–48 hours for actionable results. 
• Subscription / service model: The technology is offered as a “Sensing as a Service” model, where farms install the device, and KOA provides ongoing monitoring, data access, alerts, and maintenance. 

By enabling early detection, KOA claims its solution helps reduce fish mortality, lowers reliance on antibiotics, cuts operational losses, and supports more sustainable aquaculture practices. 

KOA Biotech raised €2 million in a seed funding round led by Swanlaab Innvierte Agrifood-Tech, a Spanish venture capital fund focused on agrifood-tech and biotech innovation. The round also included participation from Fund-F, an impact / early-stage European VC that prioritizes gender-diverse founding teams, and Faber, a Lisbon-based deep tech VC investing in science- and tech-driven startups with themes like climate, oceans, and applied sciences. Additionally, KOA has secured public co-investment: the Spanish innovation agency CDTI Innovación, via its program Innvierte, contributed €500,000 to help develop its preventive health monitoring devices for aquaculture

Final Thoughts

KOA Biotech represents a promising innovation in the aquaculture sector by bridging biotechnology, electronics, and AI to offer real-time, in situ pathogen monitoring for fish farms. Through its biosensor platform, KOA offers a preventive rather than reactive approach potentially transforming how disease outbreaks are managed in aquaculture.

With the injection of €2 million in venture funding and additional support from public innovation agencies, KOA is well positioned to scale its technology, expand field deployments, and validate its market fit. The backing from both domestic (Spanish) and pan-European investors (Fund-F, Faber) underscores confidence in KOA’s potential impact.

If successful, KOA’s solution could help reduce up to 30% production losses in fish farms, reduce antibiotic use, and improve sustainability in a sector that is crucial to meeting global protein demand. It stands as an example of how merging life sciences with real-time monitoring can bring higher resilience to food production systems.

References

KOA Biotech. (n.d.). Home. https://koabiotech.com/en/home

Cincodias. (2025, February 6). Swanlaab lidera una ronda de inversión de dos millones de la biotecnológica catalana KOA Biotech. El País. Retrieved from https://cincodias.elpais.com/companias/2025-02-06/swanlaab-lidera-una-ronda-de-inversion-de-dos-millones-de-la-biotecnologica-catalana-koa-biotech.html

Capital Riesgo. (2025, February 7). CDTI Innovación invests in KOA Biotech alongside Swanlaab. Retrieved from https://capital-riesgo.es/en/articles/cdti-innovaci-n-invests-in-koa-biotech-alongside-swanlaab/

EIT Food. (2024, June 15). KOA Biotech: Solving a €6B problem for fish farmers. Retrieved from https://www.eitfood.eu/blog/koa-biotech-solving-a-6b-problem-for-fish-farmers

EU-Startups. (2025, February 5). KOA Biotech makes a splash with €2 million to fight fish farm infections. Retrieved from https://www.eu-startups.com/2025/02/koa-biotech-makes-a-splash-with-e2-million-to-fight-fish-farm-infections/

LinkedIn. (n.d.). KOA Biotech company profile. Retrieved October 17, 2025, from https://www.linkedin.com/company/koabiotech/

Silicon Canals. (2025, February 7). Barcelona’s KOA Biotech reels in €2M to help fish farms detect infections early. Retrieved from https://siliconcanals.com/barcelonas-koa-biotech-reels-in-e2m/

Tech.eu. (2025, February 6). KOA Biotech raises €2M for early disease detection for fish farms. Retrieved from https://tech.eu/2025/02/06/koa-biotech-raises-2m-for-early-disease-detection-for-fish-farms/

Contributor : Dyah Ayuning Tyas

Reviewer : Imam Buchari