Seafood investor buys fish farming digital services provider
Bluefront Capital II, the second fund managed by seafood investor Bluefront Equity, has bought Fiizk Digital AS for an undisclosed sum.
Fiizk Digital delivers digital solutions that enable fish farmers to conduct strategic production planning through optimising both biological and financial conditions.
“More than 40% of the salmon that is produced in Norway is supported by Fiizk Digital’s solutions. This is a fantastic starting point to further develop the company,” said Kjetil Haga, partner at Bluefront, in a press release.
“We will streamline the business and contribute with new equity that will enable the company to develop even better and more holistic solutions that will make fish farmers’ operations more efficient, sustainable and profitable.”
Integrated planning
Fiizk Digital has more than 20 years’ experience from development and production of digital solutions for the seafood industry. The company’s main product, named “Horizon”, consists of various applications that cover everything within biological and financial planning, strategic and tactical optimisation, presentation of historical data, budgets and rolling forecasts that are integrated with customers’ other solutions. The system is typically utilised by fish farming companies’ employees that are in charge of production planning and finance.
In addition, FiizkZK Digital provides the solution “CTRL” (pronounced “control”), which is a specialised solution for production monitoring that is utilised by those responsible for fish farming operations. CTRL feeds operational data into the planning tool Horizon. Both products are used by both traditional ocean-based farmers and land-based fish farmers.
“Optimising production through data-driven decision-making enables fish farmers to enhance sustainable food systems by improving efficiency, reducing mortality, and promoting better fish welfare,” said Bluefront-partner Simen Landmark.
Equity injection
Fiizk Digital is being sold by FiiZK Topco AS, which has Bewi Invest AS and Oslo-listed Nekkar ASA as its largest owners.
Bluefront, plus Fiizk Digital’s original founders Torbjørn Skjetne and Magne Johnsen, and newly elected chairman Olav Jamtøy are injecting a substantial amount of equity into Fiizk Digital to strengthen the company’s balance sheet and provide growth capital to facilitate further expansion in both Norway and abroad. After all transactions have been completed, Bluefront will own approximately 90% of the shares with the remaining shares being held by Skjetne, Johnsen and Jamtøy.
Fiizk Digital is headquartered in Trondheim, Norway, with an additional office in Ålesund, Norway. The company has 20 employees and its customer base consist of small, medium-sized and large fish farming companies, primarily in Norway but also internationally.
“As the Fiizk Group wanted to focus their efforts on closed and semi-closed fish cages, and Bluefront is already heavily invested in suppliers of digital solutions, this transaction suited all parties. The employees in Fiizk Digital are positive to our new owners and we look forward to developing a streamlined digital solution provider to the seafood industry together with Bluefront,” said Torbjørn Skjetne, co-founder and managing director of Fiizk Digital.
