The Atlantic Fish Co. team.
Photo: Atlantic Fish Co.
A North Carolina start-up developing cell-cultivated seafood has secured USD 1.2 million (around EUR 1.1 million) in new seed funding, with Norway’s Katapult Ocean among the investors.
Atlantic Fish Co. said the round also drew support from Alwyn Capital, DMV Capital and the Georgetown Angel Investment Network, and that a separate Small Business Innovation Research grant from the US National Science Foundation has raised its total funding to USD 2.3 million.
"With 90% of global fish stocks harvested at maximum capacity or overfished, the $400 billion seafood market faces a critical supply challenge. Traditional aquaculture can’t address this gap as it is limited to a small number of species," the company argues, explaining its platform is designed to grow muscle tissue from fish cells and is applicable to multiple species, although it is targeting high-value whitefish for its first products, specifically sea bass.
According to the company, the technology can produce lean muscle designed to mimic the quality of restaurant-grade fillets. The new financing is intended to support further work on texture, flavour and nutritional performance, as well as preparations for discussions with the US Food and Drug Administration and pilot collaborations with chefs and foodservice operators.
“The cultivated meat sector has learned expensive lessons, and there are still only a handful of products on the market. We’ve stayed capital-efficient with disciplined milestones and focused on seafood, the category best positioned to break through," said Atlantic Fish Co. CEO Doug Grant. "This US$1.2M enables us to finalise our go-to-market product and secure the regulatory greenlights to launch in the US.”
Katapult Ocean’s investment manager Sam Selig said the Atlantic Fish team "have demonstrated outstanding execution in the nearly two years since our first conversation, consistently hitting technical milestones and advancing their platform toward what we believe is breakthrough technology in cultivated protein.” He added that the decision to support the company’s early commercialisation plans fits with Katapult Ocean’s aim to back sustainable blue-food innovationh.
The Norwegian ocean impact venture announced its latest cohort of funded startups in October, and also recently established an office in Singapore and launched an Asia ocean fund in partnership with OCTAVE Capital.
