Hatch Blue, an Ireland-based investor in aquaculture and alternative seafood startups, reached a €93 million ($101 million) second close for its second fund, the Blue Revolution Fund. The vehicle, which is advised by global environmental nonprofit The Nature Conservancy, or TNC, surpassed its initial milestone of €75 million ($94 million) in March. Investors in the latest found include the European Investment Fund with a €20 million ($26 million) infusion, the Irish Strategic Investment Fund and Germany’s Rentenbank.
The fund, known as BRF, will use the proceeds to support startups focused on the commercial production of finfish, shellfish and seaweed across North America and Southeast Asia, and introduce sustainable technologies and alternative seafood protein.
Early-stage backing
BRF plans to use the new funding to back more than a dozen early-stage aquaculture ventures working on next-generation fish farms, regenerative seaweed, bivalve farming and alternative seafood, as well as nutrition, health and genetics. It writes checks ranging from €500,000 to €5,000,000 ($546,000 to $5.4 million). The fund’s portfolio includes Norway’s CageEye, which optimizes fish feeding by tracking fish movements to determine hunger levels, Singapore’s Peptobiotics, which develops antimicrobial peptides to enhance shrimp health and survival rates in aquaculture, and Canada’s New School Foods, which produces plant-based seafood alternatives.
Sustainable aquaculture
Aquaculture helps alleviate climate change-induced pressures on natural fisheries, and has for long been the world’s fastest growing food production system. By 2030, it will provide up to two thirds of the world’s food fish supply.
BRF was launched by Hatch Blue in 2022 to fund solutions that restore ocean health and biodiversity, support coastal communities and address challenges stemming from climate change. The fund’s performance metrics include carbon sequestration amounts, nitrogen removal from coastal waterways, job creation for coastal communities, habitat protection and quantities of seafood produced.
TNC’s Robert Jones said that BRF “aims to accelerate the development and adoption of technologies and farming practices that have the potential to move aquaculture closer to realizing its nature-positive potential.”
