The Ocean 14 Capital Fund has added another aquaculture industry start-up to its growing portfolio, it announced yesterday via LinkedIn.
The ocean impact fund, whose vision is "a healthy ocean for everyone through a sustainable and regenerative blue economy", has invested in WellFish Tech, a rapid fish health assessment start-up business for the aquaculture industry.
The company, which spun out of the University of the West of Scotland in 2021, provides commercial monitoring and fish health diagnostics to the aquaculture industry.
WellFish Tech uses a combination of blood biomarkers and artificial intelligence to determine and diagnose fish health, enabling fish farmers to improve monitoring, health and wellbeing of their fish stocks, and thus ultimately optimise aquauclture production.
Headquartered in Paisley, Scotland, with operations in the UK, Canada, and Norway, the start-up has ambitions beyond diagnostics, planning to provide feed optimisation and aquaculture healthcare further down the line.
"We are delighted to have invested in Wellfish and be part of the aquaculture diagnostics market that is valued at £3 billion and growing," says Francisco Saraiva Gomes, founding partner and chief investment officer at Ocean 14 Capital.
"The sustainability of aquaculture and blue foods requires precision and rapid diagnostics. Wellfish' solution has the potential to become one of the de facto standards of the industry," he added.
