Aqua-Spark invests in shrimp-tech company

Sustainable aquaculture fund Aqua-Spark today announced investment in Tepbac, a Vietnamese shrimp technology company that supplies farmers with internet-linked hardware and a data-based mobile phone app.

Global agrifoodtech venture capital fund AgFunder, and Vietnam-focused Son Tech Investment have also invested. The value of the investments is undisclosed.

Tepbac began as a media company in 2012 and claims to run the most popular aquaculture news website in Vietnam’s seafood industry.

Now, the company is focused on digitising shrimp farming to help the sectror perform better. Its products include Envisor, a remote water cleaning and monitoring device which keeps track of water conditions such as pH, oxygen, temperature, and salinity.

Mobile app

Tepbac co-founder Phong Tran, whose family has farmed shrimp for over 25 years, also built the framework for Tepbac’s Farmext mobile app brand, which provides farmers with software and hardware to help automate farming operations.

The company is serving 1,500 farms, with its clientele ranging from small- and large-scale farmers, to shrimp processing plants and the government.

Tepbac said the investment announced today will enable it to scale its suite of technologies, which are known to reduce risk, simplify farming operations, and save costs. It added that the company’s technology has already proven valuable for farmers by reducing costs by 20% and increasing profits by 30%.

Solving pain points

“We’re immensely pleased to welcome Tepbac into our portfolio,” said Aqua-Spark chief executive Lissy Smit in a press release.

“With Vietnam’s focus on increasing sustainable production of aquaculture and the limited number of aquatech companies currently serving the Vietnamese, Tepbac is uniquely positioned to digitise aquaculture while solving pain points along the way.

“Tepbac's platform captured our attention because it has incredible potential to improve market access for small farmers and enable more sustainable practices, all while growing and protecting one of the largest shrimp markets in the world.”

Today’s announcement from Netherlands-based Aqua-Spark is the fund’s second this week.

Yesterday it announced that it had led a £9.7 million Series A funding round by EniferBio, a Finnish company that uses a proprietary fungus to ferment agri-, food- and forest industry by-products into a high-protein ingredient suitable for aquafeed, pet food, and human food.