Spotlight on... XpertSea - Precision Aquaculture Technolgy

Twelve months ago, Xpertsea were a small precision aqua farming company looking for investment. After meeting with Tom Prins from Aqua-Spark at the 2017 Aquaculture Innovation Summit, the team travelled to the Netherlands to meet their new investor and continue discussions.

Now, only one year on, Xpertsea employs more than 30 people to help customers in over 48 countries, ranging from hatcheries and research centres to local and multinational farming operations. Their AI powered platform combining hardware and software have counted and sized more than 17 billion organisms and registered over than 200,000 aquaculture production reports.

We caught up with François Robitaille, Co-Founder - Head of Finances, from XpertSea about why innovation is so important and how to find investment as a start-up.

François, as a start-up looking for investment, what was XpertSea’s experience of the Aquaculture Innovation Summit?
Last year, we were chosen to present in the innovation showcase. It was a great experience for us as it was the first time we got to present our company to industry players other than our direct customers, such as farms and hatcheries. Apart from the showcase, we had 1 on 1 meetings with key players in different spheres of the industry, such as health and nutrition. These meetings really helped us understand where was their focus on innovation. Finally, we got to witness great presentations about the state of aquaculture and its future.

What benefits does the conference provide companies in your position?
This conference is great to understand where the main efforts in innovation are being made by key industry players. Also, the 1 on 1 meetings are really helpful to catalyse great discussions with key investors or potential strategic partners. The exposure and connexions we made at the conference definitely contributed to helping us raise a financing round of 7.5M USD.

With your rapid company growth we’re delighted to confirm XpertSea as a sponsor for Aquaculture Innovation Summit 2018. Can you share a bit about your strategic objectives going forward?
XpertSea spent the last few years working directly with farmers, building the most important database of animal data in aquaculture. We believe it is now time to share our insights and how this industry can benefit from accurate animal data from hatchery and farm production. With hundreds of thousands of quality control reports uploaded on our platform on shrimp, fish and shellfish production, our insight is crucial to help catalyse innovation and connection between producers and key industry contributors such as health, nutrition, genetics and insurance companies.

What advice do you have for start-up companies that are looking for investment?
Make sure you book your 1 on 1 meetings with the key people you want to talk to! Don’t hesitate to network and have a solid elevator pitch to catch investors attention, since there will be many other great startups.