Oslo, Norway-based seafood sustainability-focused impact investment firm Bluefront Equity has closed its second impact fund, Bluefront Capital II, with USD 100 million (EUR 85.8 million) in investments from such firms as the European Investment Fund, Novo Holdings, and the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.
In a release about the news, the company said that Bluefront Capital II had already invested in three companies engaged in improving the sustainability of the seafood supply chain: Cryogenetics, a company which preserves aquatic genetics for aquaculture purposes; aquaculture technology company Horizon Software, which was formerly known as FiiZK Digital; and Piscada, a software company which delivers analytics to aquaculture stakeholders.
Bluefront CEO Kjetil Haga said that the fund, 70 percent of which is funded by foreign investors, is supported by firms which “view the seafood value chain as a key enabler to solve the global demand for healthy and sustainable proteins and consider the blue economy to be an attractive investment opportunity.”
The European Investment Fund (EIF), which committed USD 35 million (EUR 30 million) to Bluefront Capital II, is part of the European Investment Bank. The EIF is exclusively dedicated to funding small and medium enterprises that would have trouble securing loans without its security.
Novo Holdings, the health and sustainability-focused holdings and investment company of the Novo Nordisk Foundation, and the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, a U.K.-based impact investor dedicated to the preservation of the natural world, have also both committed to the fund, though Bluefront did not divulge their exact contributions.
Other new investors who participated in funding Bluefront Capital II included Lukas Walton’s impact investing firm Builders Vision and investment firm Cambridge Associates.
A number of investors that participated in Bluefront’s first fund also returned for Bluefront Capital II, including Havfonn, the Steensland group, 3S Invest, Klaveness Marine, TD Veen, and Cubera.
Bluefront Chief Investment Officer Simen Landmark said that the company’s success “has been the catalyst for numerous repeat investments in our second fund."
"We are proud of the many new and returning quality investors that have put their trust in us,” he said.
Elsewhere in the firm, one of Bluefront's subsidiaries Seaqloud recently purchased Sematek, a company which makes sensors that detect leaks in floating aquaculture structures.
