UBQ II LDA

Their core work

UBQ II LDA is a Madeiran SME that developed and commercialized a seaweed-derived bioextract for iodine fortification of food products. Their work sits at the intersection of marine biotechnology and functional food ingredients, extracting bioactive compounds from Atlantic seaweed and adapting them for mainstream food industry use. They successfully progressed from proof-of-concept to full commercial scale using the EU SME Instrument, suggesting they have both the technical capability to develop the product and the business acumen to bring it to market. Their geographic base in Madeira — an Atlantic archipelago with rich seaweed resources — is likely a direct input to their raw material supply chain.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

UBQ II LDA has a short but coherent H2020 trajectory: a Phase 1 feasibility study in 2015 followed immediately by a Phase 2 implementation grant in 2016, both on the same product. There is no topic drift or pivot — every project is a direct continuation of the same seaweed iodine fortification concept. The evolution is not thematic but developmental: from validating the business case to scaling toward market entry, which is exactly the path the SME Instrument was designed to support.

Their entire H2020 activity concluded by 2018, so the direction they were heading was full commercialization of a single marine bioextract product — whether that succeeded or whether they continued beyond EU funding is unknown from this data.

How they like to work

UBQ II LDA led both of their H2020 projects as sole coordinator, with no recorded consortium partners — a pattern typical of SME Instrument recipients, which are specifically designed for single-company innovation projects. This means they operate independently rather than as consortium builders, and any collaboration they do occurs outside the formal EU project structure. For a potential partner, this signals a company that is self-directed and technology-owning, not a team player in large multi-partner projects.

The available data shows zero recorded consortium partners and zero collaborating countries, which is consistent with the SME Instrument model where the company is the sole beneficiary. Their formal EU network is limited to their own organization, though commercial or supply chain partnerships may exist outside the project record.

What sets them apart

UBQ II LDA appears to be a highly focused product company built around a single proprietary innovation — a seaweed bioextract for iodine fortification — rather than a broad research or consulting outfit. Their location in Madeira gives them Atlantic seaweed access that mainland European competitors may lack. The fact that they secured both SME Phase 1 and Phase 2 funding for the same product suggests the European Commission validated both their technology and their business plan.

Highlights from their portfolio

• Blue Iodine II
  At EUR 803,478, this Phase 2 SME Instrument grant represents a full commercial scale-up mandate — one of the harder EU funding competitions to win — confirming external validation of both the technology and the go-to-market plan.
• BLUE IODINE
  The EUR 50,000 Phase 1 feasibility study that directly unlocked the Phase 2 grant, demonstrating a clean SME Instrument progression from concept validation to implementation.