Happy Monday fellow aqua-enthusiasts.
Welcome to the new-look AquaBlurb. As you may notice, there’s a slightly different format to this week’s newsletter, as I’ve teamed up with my friends at The Fish Site (https://thefishsite.com/aquablurb). I hope you enjoy the new look and also appreciate my first in-depth feature: a profile of Oceanfamr’s Ewan McAsh - a taste of bigger, and better, things to come.
Have a great week ahead… we’ll be back in a fortnight!
Startup Spotlight
A oyster farmer’s story from Nuffield Farming Scholar to fintech and optech startup OceanFarmr
In 2017, Ewan McAsh, a seasoned and innovative oyster farmer with 16 years of experience (video and interview), established OceanFarmr (originally SmartOysters) to provide oyster, mussel and seaweed farmers with access to financing, digital operation capabilities and ESG services all in the palm of their hands. The app is lean and agile with integrated geolocation systems to efficiently capture inventory data, record and identify problems on the spot. With targeted management, farmers gained on average 20% higher yields with 50% less time spent on water.
With continued iteration and improvement, Ewan and OceanFarmr has recently pilot launched Farm to Flow (short term crop funding) and Farm to Own (9-12 months crop and infrastructure arrangements) with plans to launch Farm to Grow (help farmers buy farms next door) and Farm to Restore (fund ocean farms with aim to restore water quality and provide ecosystem services). Here’s more on product features.
Current funding: closed USD 1m, seeking additional USD 1.5m
OceanFarmr achievements:
158% Quarter on Quarter revenue growth
119+ active farms
USD 80m in Farm Finance pipeline
USD 1.8m in annualized revenue
Connect with OceanFarmr and add value to the team, reach out here 👉 Introduce me to OceanFarmr
Deals
🐟 Big Akwa, Swedish land-based trout producer, secures SEK 4.75m through a combination of equity sales and loans to build a 6,000 tonne land-based farm in Sweden from Sparbanksstiftelsen Norrlands Riskkapitalstiftelse, Almi Invest Mitt, Almi Företagspartner and Norrlandsfonden
Exits
💰 Engineering specialist CPM acquires pelleting, extruding and drying equipment processor IDAH to expand global position in aquafeed, pet food and plant-based protein processing markets
💸 CPF Global Food Solution Public Company Limited, a subsidiary of Thailand-based Charoen Pokphand Foods is going public on the Stock Exchange of Thailand with the issuance of 500 million shares at THB 0.50 par value
Grants
🇺🇸 The US Department of Energy announces USD 5m to evaluate the feasibility of extracting rare earth and trace critical minerals from macroalgae
Movements
Feed
🇨🇳 IFFO report reveals low Chinese domestic fishmeal supply and aquafeed production, expect continued import to fill the gap
🐶 Arbiom releases test trials of SylPro in dog food and reemphasis aquaculture as target market
💰 MicroHarvest partners with early-stage venture capital firm Simon Capitalto accelerate scale up and manufacturing of their microbial protein with additional funding
Health & Genetics
❤️ Compassion in World Farming launches new salmon welfare scorecard to ensure major seafood companies have the data to raise fish in an ethical manner
😷 Gill health issues from suspected external pathogens lead to increased mortalities at **Salmon Evolution’**s flagship land-based farm
🍤 China Guangdong Evergreen Group will export shrimp seeds to Vietnam for the 1st time as part of Chinese Belt and Road initiative
💊 Evonik’s Vigorox Trident peracetic acid receives EPA approval for use in recirculating aquaculture systems and ponds to reduce fish pathogens
🦠 EU project AquaIMPACT researches the relationship between fish gut microbiota and fish growth, nutrition and genetics
🧬 Center for Aquaculture Technologies opens research center dedicated to genome editing technologies for commercial aquaculture applications
🇬🇧 UK and India signs landmark agreement to develop research programs and study the use of UK tech to spot diseases in shrimp aquaculture
Farming
🇪🇺 Skretting unveils precision farming concept for Southern Europe to optimize feeding protocols and production management
🤖 Land-based Arctic char farmer Matorka partners with Maritech to adopt software to improve post-harvest operations
#️⃣ North America’s largest organic king salmon supplier Creative Salmonselects Innovasea’s real-time biomass estimation solution BiomassPro for full commercial use on farm
🌿 Las Palmas-based startup Macrocarbon will develop sargassum seaweed farms for use as a climate-friendly raw material for the chemical industry
Sustainability
🌊 Thai Union becomes the inaugural company to sign the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership’s Protecting Ocean Wildlife pledge
🌎 The Nature Conservancy and daily Earth data provider Planet announcespartnership on the Blue Carbon Explorer digital tool to map global mangrove and seagrass blue carbon and inform decision making
🌿 UK startup Carbon Kapture partners with shellfish farmers in Mulroy Bay to establish world’s largest seaweed farm focused on trapping and locking in carbon
🦪 New oyster restoration project led by WRF Group plants over 210 million juvenile oysters within 52.5 acres of sanctuaries in the eastern Chesapeake Bay
🐟 Planet Tracker’s recent report found that aquaculture industry will leave a 50 million tonne supply gap by 2050 unless it diversifies towards regenerative practices
Notable Read
🐋 The Mystery of the Blue Whale Songs by Kristen French
Blue whales are not only the world’s largest animals, over 75 feet long and weighing around 300,000 pounds; they are the world’s loudest, whose 180-decibel songs—as loud as a jet plane—can be heard 500 miles away by properly-attuned ears. But now their voices have inexplicably shifted from bass to basso profundo, Elvis to Barry White. And that shift is consistent around the world—even though the local anthems are not.