Aqua-Spark, the pioneer fund for sustainable aquaculture, released a new edition of the free industry report series Aqua Insights: The Transformative Power of Digital Aquatech, which explores investment into different segments of digital aquaculture technology. Now in its second issue, Aqua Insights was developed to galvanise more investment into the development of a sustainable aquaculture industry while reaching a broad range of stakeholders — from industry insiders, who can use the report in their fundraising efforts, to those looking to better understand the sustainable aquaculture opportunity.
Amy Novogratz and Mike Velings, co-founders of Aqua-Spark commented, “Aqua-Spark made its first investment in digital aquatech in 2015, our first year of investing, when we participated in eFishery’s seed round."
"At the time, there were very few startups trying to digitise aquaculture operations and even fewer investors that wanted to fund these companies. In January 2022, eFishery closed its $90 million series c, enabling the company to chase its ambition to improve the livelihoods of a million small-scale fish and shrimp farmers. Today, our digital aquatech portfolio has reached $150 million in value with investments in five aquatech companies ranging from data-driven platforms to smart feeding solutions, and from the latest generation of farm management software to HATCH Blue*, an accelerator that holds investments in over ten additional digital aquatech companies.”
Each Aqua Insights report focuses on a pressing trend within the aquaculture industry. Aqua Insights: The Transformative Power of Digital Aquatech gives a real sense of the companies and investors shaping the digitalisation of the aquaculture industry. Aside from a full overview of the digital aquatech investment landscape, it features a series of inspiring interviews with CEOs of Aqua-Spark’s digital aquatech portfolio companies, and a set of in-depth chapters on different segments of cage- and pond-based digital aquaculture technology. The Transformative Power of Digital Aquatech report will share insights from some of the established and up-and-coming enterprises and startups transforming the industry.
Willem van der Pijl, editor-in-chief of Aqua Insights said, “the transformative potential of digital aquatech is massive, just like the bandwidth of digital aquatech solutions."
"From machine vision to smart feeding and from digital traceability to small-scale farmer-centric data-driven service platforms, so many start-ups have solutions that can make aquaculture more resilient and sustainable. All these solutions are so needed to ensure that aquaculture can be one of the sources for healthy and sustainable protein in the future. Therefore, I'm so excited this report is now out."
"I hope it will encourage even more investors, entrepreneurs, farmers and their partners to dive into digital aquatech solutions and work together to realise digital aquatech’s full potential.”
Guided by Aqua Insights editor-in-chief Willem van der Pijl, a leading market intelligence expert and the owner of Shrimp Insights, the report features insights from Aqua-Spark’s aquatech portfolio companies, including Ace Aquatic, Ecto eFishery, Hatch, and XpertSea, as as well as leading investors, Althelia AgFunder, Sustainable Ocean Fund, Obvious Ventures, Wavemaker Partners, etc. Contributions to the report were also made by James Wright at Global Seafood Alliance, Matt Craze at Spheric Research, and Louisa Burwood-Taylor at AgFunder.
The report can be downloaded here.
*Hatch is part of Aqua-Spark's investment portfolio, but The Fish Site retains editorial independence
