BLUEFRONT EQUITY INVESTS IN FEED OPTIMISATION BUSINESS

Bluefront Equity invests in feed optimisation business

Seafood investor Bluefront Equity ramps up its efforts to digitise the seafood industry by investing in aquatech company Spillfree Analytics AS, which support fish farmers with analysing and improving feeding processes and growth potential.

Spillfree develops and offers decision support and services for biological optimisation and feeding in aquaculture production. The company’s tools and tailor-made software is developed together with fish farmers and is built on years of practical experience and competence from the aquaculture industry.

“The solutions offered by Spillfree offers will be instrumental in the ongoing industrialisation of the aquaculture industry. Spillfree can, through video and data analysis, contribute towards delivering word-class feeding performance, with lower costs for the fish farmer, improved fish growth and minimal impact on the marine environment. This powerful combination makes Spillfree a perfect fit for Bluefront,” says Simen Landmark, partner at Bluefront Equity.

Bluefront Equity invests in companies with products, services and technologies that contribute toward a more sustainable seafood value chain. This includes, among other things, digitalisation and automatisation of the aquaculture industry.

Feed optimisation

Spillfree was founded in 2016 by Vidar Myhre, who following 20 years’ experience from the fish farming industry saw an enormous potential for increasing the production volume and value creation among fish farmers through video documentation, measurement and competence development to achieve increased fish growth and reduced feed waste

Bluefront Equity’s founders Kjetil Haga (left) and Simen Landmark (right).

In 2018, Spillfree merged with Aqua Analytics, which was established by veterinarian Arnfinn Aunsm

Spillfree’s headquarter is based in Trondheim, Norway. The company has 17 employees, including biologists, technologists, software developers and data analysts.

Spillfree’s product portfolio includes the analytics tool VideoTools, which is tailored for optimising feeding performance; AquaTools, which is a decision-support tool for optimising biological and economic benefits of aquaculture production; DrawTools, which simulate feeding situations; and LearnTools, which consists of interactive online courses for training and skills development within feeding. The next generation tools are under development and the first modules will be launched in 2023.

“We estimate that less than five percent of the world’s fish farming facilities today utilise software and artificial intelligence to optimise their feeding processes. The remaining 95 percent use a combination of visual observation from the edge of the fish cage and video-assisted manual surveillance from a control room. Our objective is to fully automate most of the analytics operations that are today carried out manually. New capital from Bluefront Equity will allow us to implement these plans even more quickly,” says Vidar Myhre, managing director and largest shareholder of Spillfree.

Co-ownership

Bluefront Equity’s strategy is to co-own and develop companies together with the founders and current owners. This will also be the case with Spillfree.

A combination of share purchases from current shareholders and a cash injection of approximately NOK 20 million makes Bluefront Equity the largest shareholder in Spillfree with an ownership share of approximately 60 percent. All the largest current shareholders of Spillfree continue as owners with a total shareholding of approximately 40 percent. The parties have not disclosed further financial details.

From gut feeling to AI

Bluefront Equity’s capital injection into Spillfree will be used to further develop the software that customers utilise, plus to further increase its efforts to capitalise on artificial intelligence (AI) to automate the analytics work in order to secure maximum utilisation of fish feed and improve operational results.

“We believe that improved utilisation of artificial intelligence, and less reliance on gut feelings, will represent a significant competitive advantage for fish farming companies. We are very impressed by the Spillfree team’s work, and we will contribute towards further enhancing their efforts. Our objective is to offer an even more valuable product to fish farming companies,” says Simen Landmark.

Spillfree expects to reach annual recurring revenues (ARR) of more than NOK 20 million in 2023.

Odd Strøm joins the board of directors

Former Nova Sea-boss, Mr Odd Strøm, becomes new board member of Spillfree. As does Bluefront Equity’s Simen Landmark and Johan Kostveit. Olav Jamtøy remains chairman, while Arnfinn Aunsmo continues as board member.

Bluefront Equity makes the investment in Spillfree through its first fund, Bluefront Capital I. The fund is a certified sustainability fund in line with the EU’s comprehensive taxonomy guidelines, a so-called Article 8-fund.

Bluefront Equity primarily invests in small and medium-sized supplier companies that contribute towards making the future seafood value chain more sustainable, including increased traceability, improved fish health and welfare, enhanced quality of the end-product, plus better hygiene.

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