When Vala Valthorsdottir joined Aurora Abalone as its CEO in 2023, she was on a mission to scale production of the company’s indoor-grown California Red and Japanese Ezo abalone. Months later, Valthorsdottir’s priority went from scaling to ensuring her colleagues were safely evacuated after the Sundhnúkur crater erupted and lava flowed through Grindavík, the start-up’s headquarters.
Remnants of those eruptions are still visible in Grindavík today, from the dark volcanic rocks surrounding the city to the cracked home foundations to photos of the eruption that hang on the walls of Papas Restaurant – one of a handful of restaurants still open in the city.
The weeks after the eruption, Valthorsdottir and her team worked with government authorities to return to the facility and ensure the abalones were fed and alive, she shared with AgNavigator during a visit as part of Iceland’s Innovation Week. “When you have a live biomass, it’s very important for us to come here and feed the animals,” she emphasized.
“We were expecting a concrete truck on [December] 11th to put the flooring in the east building. He called us up on the Friday [and] said, ‘Okay, I will come after the weekend.’ But that weekend, the town was evacuated and almost to a day - two years later - he came, and he finished the job,” she elaborated.
From surviving to funding: How Aurora Abalone is scaling
Three years after the eruption, Aurora Abalone’s 3,200-square-foot facility is humming.
The start-up is now expanding with a farm in the Reykjanes research park as the company prepares for commercialization. Aurora Abalone will continue to use the Grindavík facility to grow the juvenile abalone and use the new facility for further growth, Valthorsdottir explained.
The new facility will benefit from the Reykjanes geothermal plant, which will provide hot seawater for the start-up to grow its abalone, Valthorsdottir explained. Once fully operational, Aurora Abalone will produce 1,000s of abalone, selling them live to the market and generating an estimated $61 million per year, she added.
In 2025, Aurora Abalone secured in €3.5 million in funding to build the Grindavík facility. Valthorsdottir was unsure whether investors would support a start-up located near a volcano, saying, “I had no idea what investors would say.”
Over time, Grindavík and the surrounding area improved, and the Icelandic government implemented safeguards to prevent future volcanic damage, providing stability to the region and attracting investors, she said. This also demonstrated the resiliency of the Icelandic people, she added.
“They had secured us from the lava flow. If the high-voltage lines went down because of lava, they were up and running two weeks later. The lava went over the hot water pipe in town, and what they did was just bury the pipe when they fixed it next time,” Valthorsdottir said.
