Aquacopia is the only VC firm focused entirely on Aquaculture. I had the pleasure of writing about them in the upcoming issue of Aquaculture North America, interviewing the CEO and co-founder of the firm, David Tze.
Located on 28 West and 27th Streets in Manhattan, Aquacopia co-founder and managing director Tze wants to find the next best aquaculture shop, technology or alternative feed source to invest in, whether a startup or an already commercial outfit looking to change or expand.
“The thing that caught my attention was an article in Wired Magazine a while back on open ocean mariculture and also the supply and demand dynamics of seafood moving forward; the growth rate of the world population,” Tze told me. “It all got me very fascinated and inspired.”
The industry had also gained the attention of Jared Polis, Tze's undergraduate pal from Princeton. Polis started and sold an online greeting card company to Excite AtHome in 1999; he scored again by unloading ProFlowers, an online flower shop, to Liberty Media in 2006, according to a Forbes Magazine story on the two in 2009.
Tze had also worked at an online marketplace for the oil and gas industry and as well as other ventures in e-commerce. While researching the opportunities out there for aquaculture, including possibly starting their own fish farm, they both concluded that much of the research is being done at the University level in the U.S. but most of it rarely gets commercialized.
Both concluded then that there was a need for professional investing in early stage aquaculture.
Not deterred by some of the controversial challenges facing aquaculture, like feed fishery pressures, tightly farmed marine fish inviting disease outbreaks and waste concentrations, the two went on an investment hunt for their venture capital idea.
Polis reportedly mustered $16 million, including his own savings and money from friends and family, before stepping aside in 2008 after winning a congressional seat in Colorado. Now Tze is Aquacopia's only full-time employee, navigating the fund, which has minority stakes in five holdings, and charges investors 2.5% on assets under management, plus a 20% cut of the capital gains, according to the Forbes piece.
The startups Aquacopia tends to invest in are those companies most likely to meet those controversies in aquaculture that have plagued the industry since the 1980s.
Tze is excited about the opportunities at Oberon FMR, Inc., an alternative feed manufacturer in Idaho Springs, Colo.
Oberon is an early stage, startup, company with proprietary technology capable of producing a sustainably produced protein meal. Oberon’s product serves as a fish meal replacement (FMR) or additive ingredient for animal feeds, primarily those destined for the aquaculture industry. Oberon has developed a sustainable process for generating high quality single cell protein (SCP) meal from by-products contained in the wastewater treatment streams generated by food and beverage manufacturers.
“We have developed ProFloc, a high quality protein source (approximately 65% protein) that can serve as a fish meal replacement,” Oberon’s president and CEO Andrew Baum said in an email. “The product is produced using the wastewater from food processing facilities and breweries.”
Baum said Aquacopia participated in the startup’s series A and B rounds and in bridge financing too.
Aquacopia also helped out in other ways as well.
“David Tze has provided excellent strategic advice as a BOD [Board of Directors] member, and his extensive contacts in the financial and aquaculture industries have been invaluable,” Baum explained.
Baum said Oberon hopes to go commercial in 2012.
The VC firm also invests in commercial mariculture ocean pen maker Ocean Farm Technologies. Tze serves an advisor to the board for industry navigation and other services. In addition, the VC firm invests in Open Blue Sea Farms, an open ocean Cobia farm in Panama; Futuna Blue, a captive breeding center for Atlantic Blue Fin Tuna in Spain; and Litchfield Farms Organic and Natural’s Community Catch, an online marketplace that matches seafood buyers and fishermen, fish and shellfish farmers and suppliers.
I hope my editors don't get too upset with the amount of my story I took from for this blog post before publication on Nov. 1st. But I thought it's important to share with you the only U.S.aquaculture VC firm out there. That will likely change as the country moves forward with the implementation of the new aquaculture policy released by the Obama Administration last summer. Until then, contact Aquacopia if you have a need for capital funding.
