Over three billion individuals worldwide depend on seafood from the wild and aquafarms as a primary source of protein. As per a recently released report, aquaculture outputs have soared to unprecedented levels, with 89% of aquatic animal produce being consumed directly by humans. This underscores an upward trend in the consumption of sea-based foods worldwide. In response, aquaculture start-ups are leveraging AI innovations to boost both productivity and sustainability in the sector.
One notable entity is Wittaya Aqua, a startup based in Canada that has developed a data-oriented platform designed to unify various data metrics throughout the seafood value chain, thus enhancing profitability, sustainability, and efficiency for seafood farmers. The company recently secured $2.8 million in seed funding to refine its feed-to-farm platform and broaden its reach within Asia, having established operations in Singapore as of 2023.
“Originally established in Canada, our sights are set on extending our impact globally, with Asia being integral to our strategy. … Asia leads in aquaculture outputs worldwide, serving as a significant contributor to global seafood supplies,” stated Evan Hall, Wittaya Aqua’s co-founder and CEO, during interviews with TechCrunch. “The high production levels in Southeast Asia represent a fertile ground for enhancing production through the use of data analytics.”
Aquaculture is practiced widely, yet a handful of countries including China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, and South Korea, lead the industry as the top five producers.
Wittaya Aqua’s innovative platform employs AI and machine learning technology to advance science-based modeling, predictive analytics for animal growth, and to provide recommendations for the best feed types and quantities using real-time data and growth projections. Its algorithm meticulously processes historical and environmental data to optimize farming strategies for improved yields.
Hall, who has a background in wildlife conservation photography, and Dominique Bureau, a university professor specializing in animal nutrition and aquaculture, founded Wittaya Aqua in 2017 after realizing the industry’s struggle with fragmented and cumbersome data handling. Hall reflects on the difficulties of manually transferring field data into analytical tools like Excel from his time as a fisheries biologist.
The existence of scattered and slow-to-access aquaculture data has historically obstructed effective decision-making, according to Hall. Wittaya Aqua intends to cut through this complexity by aggregating data from various stakeholders in the supply chain—such as farmers, feed mills, and ingredient suppliers—into a singular, streamlined platform. This consolidation aims to provide transparency and actionable insights across the value chain, enhancing decision-making at all levels, Hall emphasizes.
“Offering a coherent overview, we are able to construct dependable, scientific models that deliver actionable intelligence to stakeholders,” Hall elaborated. “For example, farmers can directly observe the effects of their feed selections on growth rates and benchmark their performance. Similarly, feed mills can scrutinize the efficacy of their products across different farms, allowing them to tailor their offerings to meet specific customer demands more accurately.”
Currently serving ingredient suppliers, feed mills, and farmers, Wittaya Aqua is now entering a revenue-generating phase and has reportedly onboarded several customers including BioMar, De Heus, Uni-President, US Soybean Export Council, Soy Aquaculture Alliance, Temasek Lifesciences Laboratory, AquaChile, and others.
The aquaculture market is anticipated to grow to $355.6 billion by 2033 from $299 billion in 2023, suggests a Precedence Research report.
Wittaya Aqua distinguishes itself from other farm management solutions like Fieldin, Taranis, eFishery, Victory Farms, Atarraya, and AquaEasy by its integration of nutritional data with operational performance metrics. This unique approach enables the company to simulate the effects of various feed ingredients on animal health, a capability that, along with its multi-species and multi-regional operational focus, sets it apart from its competitors, according to Hall. Looking forward, Wittaya Aqua’s aim is to foster financial resilience among farmers by decreasing the perceived risks associated with credit and insurance related to production mortality through the provision of robust data and insights, and by connecting users with lenders and insurers offering tailored financial products, as Hall describes.
The company maintains a workforce of 16 employees spread across Canada and Singapore.
Compiled by Techarena.au.
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