Cyanotech Corporation was founded in 1983 by Dr. Gerald Cysewski, PhD, in Washington State. Cyanotech was formed through a reverse-merger with an inactive public shell corporation and has been a public company since inception and did not have an initial public offering (IPO). Dr. Cysewski had been growing spirulina as an experiment in his garage. He recognized the opportunity to produce a higher quality and cleaner spirulina than the spirulina beginning to be imported into the US health food market. He also quickly realized that this microalgae had great potential to flourish on a larger scale in a carefully controlled production environment.

Our original team of employees jumped into Dr. Cysewski’s dream without much of a roadmap since Cyanotech was one of the first commercial microalgae farms. Dr. Cysewski and team spent many hours in the grueling Hawaiian sun, hand-digging trenches for water lines and building up berms for the ponds. Our facility was built with copious amounts of hard work and determination. Several of the original crew, including Glenn Jensen, VP of Manufacturing and Infrastructure, still work at Cyanotech today.

In 1988, Cyanotech underwent a third expansion. Hawaiian Spirulina was being sold in numerous markets, including agricultural use, animal feed, and as a dietary supplement for human consumption. Cyanotech also started growing another key algae, Haematococcus pluvialus, for its high content of natural astaxanthin. The plan was to replace synthetic astaxanthin used in aquaculture feeds as a coloring agent with natural astaxanthin derived from microalgae.

Cyanotech successfully completed a public offering of its stock and raised $10.6 million. These funds were used to complete the build out of both the spirulina and Haematococcus production systems.

Cyanotech completes three human clinical trials, demonstrating positive health benefits of BioAstin Hawaiian Astaxanthin.

A 684KW photovoltaic system was commissioned at Cyanotech, reducing greenhouse emissions by 791 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year (equating to emissions of gas from 167 passenger vehicles annually) and saving the Company $123,000 per year for the next 20 years. The use of solar to power our farm is in line with our goal of sustainability and leaving the land in better condition for future generations.

Flash forward to today, Cyanotech has grown to a facility that encompasses 96 acres of algae cultivation ponds, processing facilities, an on-sight extraction plant, and office and research buildings. Our two products, BioAstin Hawaiian Astaxanthin and Hawaiian Spirulina are the nation’s #1 brands in their respective categories. Cyanotech continues to be a world leader in microalgae cultivation and was awarded the 2017 Kailua-Kona Kohala Chamber of Commerce Business Innovation Award.