Aquaculture Dealflow & Notable Reads - 15
Bi-weekly roundup of investments and market movements in aquaculture
Welcome to 2023! These are my pick of news items bridging the last week of 2022 and the first week of 2023. Enjoy and have a great weekend ahead.
Investments
🌿 Indico Capital Partners, Portuguese venture capital firm, have invested in 2 biotech companies: Italian Ittinsect, Rome-based alt aquaculture insect and byproduct feed startup, and Inclita Seaweed Solutions, developer of seaweed extracts for pet care, food & beverage, cosmetics and nutraceutical industries
🐟 Gaia Salmon, land-based post-smolt producer, secures NOK 155m (25.3% ownership) from Aker Ocean
Acquisitions
🐟 Mowi, world’s largest salmon farmer, completes EUR 180m acquisition of Icelandic salmon farmer Arctic Fish
🏭 Silver Bay Seafoods, Alaskan seafood processing group, acquires value-added processor Orca Bay Foods for vertical integration
Funding
👩🌾 Asian Development Bank provides USD 166m to drive sustainable development of the seafood sector in Indonesia and Cambodia
🐟 Alaska Native corporations, owner of 7 million acres in Bristol Bay, secures USD 20m to protect 44,000 acres of wild salmon fishery in Bristol Bay against Pebble Mine project
Movements
Carbon Sequestration
🌿 Researchers from Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology discovered that brown seaweeds, e.g. bladderwrack, could remove up to 550 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere annually
🌱 Denmark engineers and artists create 55 square kilometers of artificial reef project called “Super Reef” using innovative concrete to restore seaweed habitat and absorb carbon dioxide
Farming
🐟 Kvidul secures permit from Trøndelag County Authority for land-based salmon and smolt farm to produce 10 million salmon smolts and 20,000 tonnes of harvested salmon
Research
🍣 Norwegian research institute Nofima develops methods for the rapid measurement of omega-3 fatty acids eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) in salmon fillets
Regional Commitments
🇨🇦 Canada lays out open net pen transition plan to adopt alternative production methods that minimize or eliminate interactions between farmed and wild salmon
🇺🇸 Rhode Island launches the 4-year USD 1m Partnership for Research Excellence in Sustainable Seafood (PRESS) for an aqua industry overhaul
Notable Reads
🐬 Dolphins Shrug Off Hot Sauce–Spiked Nets by Sarah Keartes
“The initial shock for me was seeing it happen in real time,” she says. The first time dolphins interacted with their hot sauce–spiked nets, two individuals spent no more than 15 minutes tearing 217 holes in the gear.
“And then the victory laps!” Garagouni says. “The play afterwards, when there were young calves in the group—after they’d get their fill of fish—the young ones would go off and do leaps in the air, almost as if to burn off all this new fuel. If this was our livelihood, I think it would be the most infuriating element to watch. But for me, obviously, it was amazing.”