Mather Carscallen, Founder, President and CEO of SabrTech Inc.
What would you say is a key component to your business strategy as a seafood executive?
Focus and collaboration are two important elements of my business strategy. Being focused has allowed SabrTech to advance rapidly and create a unique algae cultivation platform technology. At the same time extensive collaboration with some of the best academic, private, and government groups around the world has enabled us to gain local know-how, essential for a technology like ours that has a global application. We enhance the expertise in our domain with collaborations that allow us to develop technology that solves a problem rather than putting a band-aid on it. Collaborating with potential customers is important also, as it allows us to integrate valuable feedback from those experiencing complex challenges such as feed shortages and excess waste production, into the design of our technology.
How would you sum up your philosophy as a seafood business leader?
My philosophy is one of working with nature to find solutions and generate long-term prosperity. I believe that to solve the world’s most complex challenges in the areas of food, energy, and waste, among others, we need to redesign how we think as a species. Instead of placing ourselves outside the natural environment, we must integrate with it to achieve economic, social and environmental progress. In doing so we will find sustainable solutions that will enable us to continue inhabiting this earth for centuries.
What sets SabrTech apart from its competitors?
Three main elements set our algal cultivation platform technology apart from the competition. First is our alignment with nature as the basis for design of the technology. Our core philosophy is much different than that of the competitors’ as we don't force algae to grow in an environment where it has not evolved to grow. Our technology respects and leverages natural processes and 4 billion years of evolution. Secondly, our distributed model sets us apart from the competition. We develop a technology that is modular, scalable, and rapidly deployable. Our algae cultivation platform technology is simple in design and operations, and hence it is affordable and plug-and-play, making it accessible across the globe. Lastly, because of the two differentiators above, our technology is able to produce low-cost algae in small and commercial scales, something that our competitors have been struggling with for many years.
What can we expect to see from SabrTech heading into 2016?
2016 is lining up to be a very exciting year for SabrTech. We are raising USD 3.0M for a commercial-scale launch in Singapore with one of our strategic partners and a customer focused on expanding their sustainable aquaculture operations. Additionally, we have several on-going collaborations with academic partners working on technology developments. We will see a couple innovations come through in 2016 which will support or current efforts as well as benefit the rest of the industry.
