Aquaculture Dealflow | Mar 18 - 31, 2023
Bi-weekly roundup of investments and market movements in aquaculture
Investments
🐟 Atlantic Sapphire, land-based salmon farmer, raises USD 55m to achieve steady production of 9,500 tons of gutted salmon a year in Phase 1 of its flagship Florida RAS and to increase capacity to 25,000 tons a year in Phase 2. Investors include Nordlaks and Blue Future Holding
🦠 Unibio secures USD 70m investment from Saudi Industrial Investment Group (SIIG) to roll-out new global production capacity and grow operating capabilities
Acquisitions
🏗 Nekkar, Norwegian engineering company, acquires Techano Group, Kristiansand-based equipment supplier that develops advanced load handling and lifting equipment for fish and offshore cranes
🌿 J Rettenmaier & Söhne (JRS), German fiber and hydrocolloid specialist, buys French seaweed processor Algaia to produce biodegradable solutions for feed, food, agriculture and pharma sectors
🍔 Avanti Feeds, Indian feed giant, acquires 50.01% shares in Srivathsa Power Projects from Asia Infrastructure for INR 38.4m
Exits & IPOs
💰 Charoen Pokphand Group is exploring a USD 600m to USD 1 billion IPO of its seed and animal feed business on the Stock Exchange of Thailand
🌿 Ocean Harvest Technology, UK based seaweed company, will list on UK’s Alternative Investment Market on April 4th to raise GBP 6m via IPO
Grants
🍤 Taprobane Seafoods, Sri Lankan shrimp farmer, secures a USD 15m loan from Dutch entrepreneurial development bank FMO to rehabilitate abandoned farms and invest in new farms and processing facility
New Products & Services
🐟 BioFishency, leading electro-chemical and biological water treatment provider for RAS, launches BioFishency ELX™ to remove MIB (2-Methylisoborneol) and geosmin in fish while feeding
❄️ Food service division of Howshow Co in Japan introduces the Food Time Machine, a device capable of freezing a piece of sashimi in less than a minute using vibration
🌱 CSIRO launches AquaWatch Australia to provide near real-time updates and predictive forecasting of harmful algal blooms
🐟 SPARO launches WIN Max - a novel micro-diet for juvenile turbot
🍣 DSM launches Digital SalmoFan™ salmon color measurement tool
Movements
Feed
🪰 IFC supports Entobel’s black soldier fly farming facility expansion in Vietnam
🏭 Betagro PCL, Thailand based integrated food company, launches smart new feed mill in Thailand with annual production capacity of over 600,000 tons
🌻 Scoular, Nebraska-based agribusiness, retrofits the former sunflower crush plant to crush soybeans and canola and process 11 million bushels of oilseeds a year
🌾 Botaneco, Canada-based feed company, develops a water-based manufacturing platform technology that improves canola availability for aquafeed
🍓 NovoNutrients, microbial protein producer from carbon capture, scales up carotenoid production
Health & Genetics
🐚 Researchers from Qilu University of Technology and the Ocean University of China discovers that tracking valve movements of farmed scallops reveals health status and survivability
☠ The Conservation Fund’s Freshwater Institute wins award in 2023 NewTechAqua Challenge for its real-time fish mortality monitoring system MortCam
🧬 Benchmark identifies significant genetic markers that indicate resistance to Streptococcus iniae in Nile tilapia
Farming
🧊 Icelandic consultancy Marko Partners invests in Norwegian offshore rig creator Aqualoop to establish new firm Icelandic Offshore Salmon and build up offshore farming capacities
💡 The shrimp hatchery business of Charoen Pokphand Foods (CP) becomes the 1st Thai company to win ISO 56002 innovation standard from MASCI
🍤 Europe’s leading shrimp producers Neomar and Crusta Nova joins forces to form Oceanloop to create the largest sustainable land-based shrimp farm globally
🔊 Aquatech specialist Ace Aquatic partners with marine ecosystem restoration specialists Ocean Health to improve FaunaGuard, an acoustic system that creates temporary exclusion zones
👩⚖️ Probiotic secures patent for autonomous fish farm cleaning system for marine and land-based fish farms
Commitments
🌏 Blue Aqua International, Bahwan Services and Trading LLC (BSTL), and Muscat Investment House (MIH) partner to develop aquaculture projects in Singapore and Oman, details here
🌊 Biden-Harris administration releases the first ever US government led strategy to maximize ocean to combat climate change
🇲🇹 AquaBioTech, Malta-based aquaculture R&D firm, successfully concludes AquaDetector project with Chinese partners Mingbo Aquatic Co. and China Agricultural University to enhance farm management digitalization and research collaboration
🇹🇷 11 Turkish trout producers visit Japan for business matching meetings with importers amid rapid expansion in exports
🇨🇦 Canadian province Nova Scotia has temporarily paused the development of new salmon net-pen sites until the creation of a coastal classification system
🇬🇧 UK passes the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act to improve food security, reduce pesticide use and enhance climate-resilience in crops
🇳🇴 The Norwegian government has announced plans to reduce resource rent tax on marine aquaculture by 5% to 35%
Notable Reads
🐡 Reef fish must relearn the 'rules of engagement' after coral bleaching by ScienceDaily
Scientists studying reefs across five Indo-Pacific regions found that the ability of butterflyfish individuals to identify competitor species and respond appropriately was compromised after widespread loss of coral caused by bleaching.
🐧 Penguins May Have Passed the Mirror Test by Richard Pallardy
Wild Adélie penguins respond to their own reflection, suggesting self-awareness.