Utrecht, The Netherlands-based sustainable aquaculture investment fund Aqua-Spark is planning to invest in a shellfish genetics company this year and sees a strong outlook for future investments.
Thus far in 2021, Aqua-Spark has made follow-on investments in firms within its portfolio and hasn’t been able to make as many new investments as it had hoped, co-founder and co-managing director Mike Velings told SeafoodSource. However, the company is aiming to complete eight to 12 investments in 2021.
“The pipeline for potential deals has never looked as good as it does today,” Velings said.
Velings said he is particularly optimistic about insect based alternative feeds; Aqua-Spark invested in insect farmer Protix in 2017.
“We are moving into a more significant production phase,” he said. “Whereas up to now we measured output of insect-based alternative feeds in tens of thousands of tons, by 2025, we will be measuring in the hundreds of thousands of tons.”
Aqua-Spark now has assets under management of EUR 194 million (USD 228 million), up from EUR 130 million (USD 153 million) in March 2020, and Velings said he expects the total rise to EUR 270 million (USD 318 million) by August.
The fund has now invested in 22 companies, up from 19 in early 2020. Its most recent investment, in Indian seaweed firm Sea6 Energy in July 2021, was a USD 9 million (EUR 7.6 million) entrance into the company’s Series B funding round.
All of the Aqua-Spark’s invested companies made it through the COVID-19 pandemic, and Velings said the extra strain placed on business by the crisis validated the business cases of the fund’s investments.
Though several of its fish-producing investments were unable to supply clients, Velings said their output volumes are not yet at the scale that the delay caused fatal damage to their prospects. Unexpectedly, the COVID pandemic boosted a few of Aqua-Spark’s investments – in one case, a sea cucumber firm in Madagascar saw its sales increase because its customers began to seek out the perceived medicinal properties in the species as an immunity boost against COVID-19.
Photo courtesy of Aqua-Spark
