Aquaculture Dealflow | Feb 18 - Mar 3, 2023
Bi-weekly roundup of investments and market movements in aquaculture
Announcement
💡 Hatch calls for applications for Hatch Accelerator 5.0 (from Jun 26 to Sep 28, 2023) | To apply or to find out more details please contact Wayne Murphy (wayne@hatch.blue) or visit the Hatch website
〄 The Global Seafood Alliance (GSA) released the Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) Hatchery Standard Issue 2.1
📐 WWF released reports on GHG measurement for salmon, shrimp and tuna here
Investments
🪰 Ittinsect, Italian biotech startup, raises EUR 750,000 from CDP Venture Capital, Katapult Ocean, Indico Capital Partners, LVenture Group, and 2 angel investors to produce 1,500 tons of sustainable aquafeeds by end of 2023
🪰 Full Circle Biotechnology, Thailand-based novel feed startup, secures USD 1.25m in pre-seed funding from Katapult Ocean and Asia Sustainability Angels
💡 Nutreco takes minority stake in BiomEdit as part of its April 2022 Series A round (amount undisclosed) to provide aquaculture and livestock producers with novel feed additives
🌱 **The Plant Based Seafood Company’s “Mind Blown” brand of plant-based seafood alternatives receives investment of undisclosed amount from Walton-backed S2G Ventures
🚛 FreshToHome, India-based startup that distributes fresh seafood and meat in 160 cities, secures USD 104m Series D funding from Amazon’s Smbhav Venture Fund
Grant
🌱 Purdue University receives USD 10m aquaponic grant from the the US Department of Agriculture to establish an aquaponics facility and biorefinery
🇬🇧 The United Kingdom Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs assigns GBP 100m allocation towards the seafood and aquaculture sectors from the U.K. Seafood Fund | Project will receive grants up to GBP 250,000
🇺🇸 Researchers from University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology receives USD 2m grant from US Department of Energy to explore the capacity of microalgae to absorb CO₂ emissions from industrial power plants
Acquisitions
🧬 Benchmark Holdings acquires remaining 10.52% minority interest in its subsidiary Benchmark Genetics Iceland
🇵🇱 Germ food giant Muller inks deal to acquire Polish seafood company Graal Group to expand operations in Poland
🦑 South Africa-based seafood company Premier Fishing SA acquires Talhado Fishing Enterprises, the largest producer of squid Cape Town, by taking up additional 607 ordinary shares at ZAR 95 million
🌼 Adisseo acquires Nor-Feed, producer of plant-based ingredients and extracts for the animal nutrition segment, as part of Adisseo’s strategy to dominate market for specialty ingredients (amount undisclosed)
🇫🇮 Global nutrition company Alltech, together with Finnish RAS producer Finnforel, acquires Raisioaqua fish feed production facility from Finnish company Raisio
New Products
🐟 BioFishency, in partnership with Technion, successfully removes 2-Methylisoborneol (MIB) and geosmin from recirculated aquaculture systems to eliminate off-flavors in trout
🍣 Nofima develops non-destructive methods to quickly measure EPA and DHA fatty acid acids in salmon fillets using near infrared spectroscopy technique
Movements
Feed
🍤 Researchers produce superior astaxanthin for shrimp feeds from genetically engineered strain of yeast Kluveromyces marxianus (known as 3S, 3’S-ASTX)
🦐 Researchers discover that krill meal and oil can provide sufficient dietary choline to alleviate intestinal steatosis for farmed Atlantic salmon
🫘 BENEO, leading manufacturers of functional ingredients, adds new faba bean ingredient range to product portfolio for aqua and livestock feed sourced from German farmers with FSA Gold standard
🎖 Calysta's flagship microbial alt feed product FeedKind achieves “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS) status with the United States Food and Drug Administration
🍣 MicroHarvest, Hamburg-based microbial producer for fishmeal replacement, named in 2023 BloombergNEF Pioneers Awards
🍔 Nordic Halibut and Skretting sign 3 year contract to create next generation of halibut feed
🇲🇾 EU approves Malaysia as a third-party importer of insect-based ingredients with Nutrition Technologies to import insect meal into EU following in suite
Seafood
🐍 Umami Meat, Singaporean cell-based seafood startup, partners with Triplebar to create cell lines to develop cell-cultivated Japanese eel
🍣 Thai Union launches first branded vegan “fish-free” tuna products through canned seafood subsidiary John West in the Netherlands
Farming
🐟 Pure Salmon, 8F Asset Management-owned land-based fish farm developer, inks GBP 421.5m deal with Saudi Arabia to build a RAS salmon farm in the kingdom
🌿 Folla Alger, SINTEF and Cermaq launches world’s first salmon and kelp farm
🏭 AquaCultured Seafood plans UK’s largest salmon farm in Grimsby targeting to produce 5,000 tonnes annually
🐟 Benguela Blue Aqua Farming secures permits to grow up to 35,000 tonnes of Atlantic salmon annually in submersible net pens called Seastation off the coast of Namibia
🍤 Blue Aqua shrimp farming facility in Neo Tiew becomes 1st aquaculture venture in Singapore to achieve ASC certification
🇺🇸 The Coalition for Sustainable Aquaculture (CSA) adds 6 new members to develop best-in-class offshore aquaculture practices in the US
🌬 Amazon allocates EUR 1.5m towards North Sea Farm 1 project to farm seaweed in between wind turbines positioned in the North Sea
🥚 Research shows that moving trout fry to a separate production unit post yolk sac absorption for immediate feeding improve biomass survival rates
Health & Genetics
🍤 BioMar launches probiotic mixes SmartCare Balance line to improve environmental conditions for farmed shrimp from hatchery to grow-out
⛴ Successful importation of GenoMar tilapia broodstock from Philippines into Columbia to serve as parent stock for commercial fingerlings
🦠 A team of researchers from FAO, the City University of Hong Kong, Nitte University, the National Aquaculture Group (NAQUA) and the Norwegian Veterinary Institute publishes review on alternatives to antibiotics (paper here)
Carbon Sequestration
🌱 Ocean Visions publishes digital roadmap on microalgae cultivation for carbon sequestration here
🌊 Planetary Technologies, startup specializing in ocean carbon removal via alkalinity enhancement, submits its measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) protocol for CO₂ removal for review
💡 MIT researchers are developing an ocean-based carbon removal system with high efficiency and potential to integrate with offshore sites and aquaculture farms
🐟 Study finds emission values between 4.8 to 28 kg CO2e per kg edible salmon (details here)
Regional Commitment
🇮🇩 Indonesia sets target to produce 2 million MT of shrimp by 2024, some experts are skeptical
🇪🇺 EU Commission aims to achieve net zero emissions fisheries and aquaculture sector by 2050 and proposes the “Pact for Fisheries and Oceans” vision
Notable Reads
Whose Egg Is It Anyway? by Annie Roth
Existing in a seemingly infinite array of shapes, sizes, and colors, marine fishes are easy enough to tell apart. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about their eggs. That’s why, for the past year, Lev and her colleagues have been working with other aquariums creating an open-source catalog of marine fish eggs.