Aqua-Spark invests in aquaculture business incubator

Aqua-Spark, a fund that invests in sustainable aquaculture projects, has invested in Norway-based Hatch Accelerator 1.0, a first-of-its-kind program that aims to accelerate eight aquaculture businesses in 2018. 

Since its founding in 2015, The Netherlands-based investment fund has invested in nearly a dozen companies, including Calysta, a bio-tech company that works to make fish feed healthier and more environmentally friendly; Sogn Aqua, a Norwegian fish farm working to sustainably harvest Atlantic Halibut; and Matorka, an Icelandic land-based, geothermal Arctic char farming operation. 

Hatch deals mostly with start-ups in their beginning phases, whereas Aqua-Spark works predominantly with small- and medium-sized enterprises. However, the companies think that a pipeline can be created so that businesses are able to work with both groups. 

“Aqua-Spark often encounters great ideas, products, and technologies that could have benefitted from ideation phase support,” Aqua-Spark Co-Founders Mike Velings and Amy Novogratz said in a press release. “Between Aqua-Spark and Hatch, there is a clear opportunity for a symbiotic partnership that will improve collective deal flow. We can direct smart, early-phase companies to Hatch, and as Hatch actively finds and grows early-stage startups, Aqua-Spark can absorb those that have progressed beyond accelerator. It is a holistic win for the aquaculture industry as a whole.”

Aqua-Spark manages EUR 57 million (USD 70.4 million) and hopes to grow the fund to more than EUR 1 billion (USD 1.2 billion) by 2025, with aims of growing the theme of sustainability along with the investment fund. 

The firm announced two other keystone investments in November 2017.