Campbell River, British Columbia, Canada-based aquaculture equipment firm Poseidon Ocean Systems has entered into a financing partnership with Private Debt Partners.
Private Debt Partners provides institutional capital to mid-market businesses in Canada. A loan from the company’s senior opportunities fund will be used by Poseidon Ocean Systems to fuel its expansion in South America. The company recently expanded into the Chilean market, opening an office in Puerto Montt, and hired Mauricio Cerda as commercial manager of its Latin American operations.
"We are excited to provide Poseidon with capital to support their international expansion. Our team was very impressed with the Poseidon management team and their proprietary products that are leading to advances in the global salmon farming industry,” PDP Managing Partner Greg Dimmer said in a press release.
Poseidon Ocean Systems is a Canadian full-service aquaculture engineering and technology provider, specializing in saltwater aquaculture infrastructure and life-support systems design, engineering, product development, and supply.
"To support the recent growth within Poseidon's business, we are pleased to embark on a new financing partnership with PDP,” Poseidon Ocean Systems Founder and CCO Heather Clarke said. “We are excited to have a lending partner who took the time to understand what drives our business and provide a financing that was bespoke to Poseidon and will act as a catalyst for our future growth.”
At the beginning of 2021, the company raised CAD 5 million (USD 3.9 million, EUR 3.2 million) in Series A financing to pay for engineering costs and delivering new technologies to market. The investment was led by Ag Capital Canada, a private equity fund based in Tillsonburg, Ontario, and included additional follow-on investment from Export Development Canada (EDC).
In December 2022, Poseidon Ocean Systems hired Jamie Gaskill as its chief executive officer, with co-founder and former CEO Matt Clarke transitioning into the role of chief technology officer at the company, where he plans to focus on continuing to develop new technologies to improve the aquaculture industry.
“We are incredibly excited to bring Jamie in house as our CEO. This is the natural next step in our efforts to build a senior management team capable of achieving Poseidon’s goal of being a global leader in aquaculture technology,” Clarke said. “We’ve had the privilege of working closely with Jamie as a key member of the Poseidon board for the past 18 months, and are confident that Jamie’s years of experience in the industry and passion for business are the perfect fit to take on the role of CEO to lead us into the next phase of our growth.”
Poseidon is the creator of the Trident Hybrid Steel Cage System for higher-energy marine-farming locations and the Flowpressor compressor system, which was designed to improve water quality in marine-farming systems while reducing diesel fuel consumption.
A 2021 trial of the Flowpressor system at two of Cermaq Canada’s salmon farms in British Columbia showed the system to be effective at algae-bloom mitigation while reducing carbon dioxide emissions at the farms by 76,000 kilograms.
“The trial demonstrated the viability of the Flowpressor technology to power our existing conventional bloom mitigation equipment, while producing 60% less greenhouse gas emissions. The overall result is that we have slashed emissions and dramatically reduced our fuel costs while improving overall performance of the mitigation system,” said Brock Thomson, Cermaq Canada’s Innovation Director.
The trial took place at Cermaq Canada’s Simmonds Point and Wehlis Bay farms from May through November 2021, and involved using Flowpressors to power Cermaq’s standard Harmful Algae Bloom systems instead of conventional diesel compressors.
“We’re thrilled with the results of the trial. When we developed this technology we projected a 60 percent reduction in emissions while also improving the performance of their aeration systems, but I think it was fair for customers to be a bit skeptical of those claims. Now that we’ve delivered as promised, we couldn’t be happier. This is a result our engineering team can be very proud of,” Clarke said. “Cermaq Canada has been at the leading edge of life-support systems development globally, as you can see with their extensive use of highly efficient oxygenation systems as well as advanced aeration systems and their trials with floating closed containment systems. They really deserve full credit for being the first to deploy Flowpressors on fully-operational salmon farms. We expect that Poseidon can help Cermaq achieve the accomplishment of having the greenest life-support systems in the world.”
Photo courtesy of Poseidon Ocean Systems
