Aquaculture Dealflow & Notable Reads - 5
Bi-weekly roundup of investments and market movements in aquaculture
Happy Friday fellow readers. These are my pick of news items driving the past two weeks. Enjoy and have a great weekend ahead!
Investments
🦐 Atarraya, creator of Shrimpbox a plug-and-play shrimp farming technology, raises USD 3.9m in Series A from Jeffrey Horing and other angel investors
🏭 Billund Aquaculture Group, Denmark-based recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) supplier, lands new investments with a Norwegian group taking a major stake
🌿 Sea6 Energy, an Indian red seaweed cultivation startup, raises a USD 18.5m Series B round from BASF Venture Capital, Aqua Spark, and Tata Capital
🌱 MiAlgae, an Edinburgh-based omega-3 producer, raises GBP 2.3m from Conduit Impact Fund, SIS ventures, Equity Gap, Old College Capital and Scottish Enterprise
Acquisitions
🍤 Canadian seafood giant Cooke acquires Belgian shrimp processor Morubel from investment group Bencis Capital Partners to expand foothold in Europe
🐟 Canadian seafood giant Cooke acquires salmon farmer Tassal at AUD 5.23/share, valuing Tassal at USD 772m
Funding
🇹🇼 Taiwanese aquaculture developer Nocera (OTC:NCRA) uplists stock to NASDAQ, raises USD 6.58m in IPO
🇮🇩 Indonesian manufaturer of seafood Toba Surimi Industries uplists stock on Indonesian stock exchange, embarks on USD 20m IPO
💶 The European Maritime, Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund allocates EUR 140.3m over 6 years to promote Finland's aquaculture and fisheries sector
🇪🇨 IFC announces USD 45m loan to leading Ecuadorean shrimp producer Industrial Pesquera Santa Priscilla to replace diesel equipment with electric alternatives and add automation to increase productivity
💰 Australian salmon and shrimp farmer Tassal launches first AUD 497m sustainability loan in aquaculture in Australia
🌊 Ocean 14 Capital Fund raises EUR 150m, plans to make 20-25 investments to build up 10-12 platforms across blue economy
Movements
🐛 Atlantic salmon nutrition could get a local twist - locally-sourced ragworms
🐟 Contestants in the aquafeed F3 challenge sold over 3,185 metric tonnes of fish-free feed, saving 88 million fish and counting
🧬 Auburn University research team first to map a high-quality genome assembly of the blue catfish - a keystone species of the US aquaculture industry
🏭 Biomar and Síldarvinnslan partner to build a modern high-tech aquafeed production facility in Iceland
🐟 Bluu Seafood unveils its first lab-grown fish products, fish sticks and fishballs, and readies for regulators in Asia, Europe and North America
🍤 Green Monday, Hong Kong based alternative proteins firm, launches operations at a new Chinese processing plant just as its OmniSeafood range hits the shelves at Whole Foods Market, and online at Ocado
🍣 Guangdong Yuehai Feed Group, Chinese aquafeed manufacturer backed by KKR, plans to invest CNY 260m to build 3R (ready to cook/heat/eat) seafood processing plant in Zhanjiang City
🦪 Oman opens its first abalone farm to produce 600 tonnes per annum
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia’s National Fisheries Development Programme targets $4 billion for fisheries and aquaculture investment
📍 Sustainable Aquaculture Innovation Centre maps out complex marine environments using new 3D digital modeling system to support Scottish seafood producers
🇮🇳 West Bengal state in India bans 20 antibiotics from use in shrimp farming
Notable Reads
Unraveling by Terry Tempest Williams
We are unraveling in inexplicable ways given how tightly and mysteriously the world is woven together. Pull one strand and all the strands are disrupted, threatening the integrity of the overall pattern.
Coastal fisheries management and novel modeling by Dr. Stuart Kininmonth
Probabilistic model couples key fish populations with complex trophic, environmental and geomorphological factors
How nano-aerators impact microbial communities in Pacific white shrimp culture ponds by Dr. Yingdong Li
Trial results showed beneficial changes possible in pond water, sediment and gut microbial communities of L. vannamei