THE BRIDGE

tag Umitron

Aquatech startup Umitron secures $9.2M in pre-series B for Nordic, Chile expansion

The Bridge The Bridge
SHARE:

Singapore- and Tokyo-based aquatech startup Umitron announced on Tuesday that it has raised 1.22 billion yen (about $9.2 million US) in a pre-series B round from ENEOS Holdings (TSE: 5020), QB Capital, and Toyo Seikan Group Holdings (TSE: 5901). The amount includes debt from Shoko Chukin Bank and other financial institutions. The latest round follows their series A round (raising 1.22 billion yen or $9.2 million US) back in 2018, and brought the funding sum to date up to 2.44 billion yen ($18.4 million US). Since its launch back in April of 2016, Umitron has developed several solutions for aquaculture farming such as Umitron Remora (AI-powered software that can be installed in existing facilities at large-scale aquaculture farms), Umitron Eagle (AI-powered real-time analysis for shrimp farming) as well as Umitron Pulse (web-based ocean satellite data service). The company announced in February that it has partnered with Eneos Holdings, one of the investors participating in this round, to launch joint research on technology applications in blue carbon businesses. Upon this funding, in addition to strengthening the business foundation of its existing and new services and cooperation with the investors, Umitron intends to accelerate its global business expansion for salmon and shrimp…

Umitron Pulse
Image credit: Umitron

Singapore- and Tokyo-based aquatech startup Umitron announced on Tuesday that it has raised 1.22 billion yen (about $9.2 million US) in a pre-series B round from ENEOS Holdings (TSE: 5020), QB Capital, and Toyo Seikan Group Holdings (TSE: 5901). The amount includes debt from Shoko Chukin Bank and other financial institutions. The latest round follows their series A round (raising 1.22 billion yen or $9.2 million US) back in 2018, and brought the funding sum to date up to 2.44 billion yen ($18.4 million US).

Since its launch back in April of 2016, Umitron has developed several solutions for aquaculture farming such as Umitron Remora (AI-powered software that can be installed in existing facilities at large-scale aquaculture farms), Umitron Eagle (AI-powered real-time analysis for shrimp farming) as well as Umitron Pulse (web-based ocean satellite data service). The company announced in February that it has partnered with Eneos Holdings, one of the investors participating in this round, to launch joint research on technology applications in blue carbon businesses.

Upon this funding, in addition to strengthening the business foundation of its existing and new services and cooperation with the investors, Umitron intends to accelerate its global business expansion for salmon and shrimp farming industries. The company has teams in Singapore and Japan, and plans to set up more local subsidiaries and business development teams in the major salmon farming markets such as Nordic countries and Chile, as well as in Southeast Asia, a major shrimp farming market.

Related news

  1. Aquatech startup Umitron secures $8.4M to help improve and sustain fisheries industry
  2. Japan’s Farmnote, developer of wearables and SaaS for dairy cows, raises $3.5M
  3. Riding the Startup Wave in Space

Japan’s Umitron launches satellite ocean data map service for aquaculture farmers

The Bridge The Bridge
SHARE:

Singapore- and Tokyo-based aquatech startup Umitron announced on Tuesday that it has launched a web-based ocean satellite data service called Umitron Pulse. Leveraging satellite remote sensing technology, high resolution marine data for various areas of the world can be checked on a daily basis, enabling aquaculture businesses to manage growth and risk more efficiently. The service offers oceanographic data such as seawater temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll concentration and wave height, and can be zoomed in and out on the screen. In addition to offering real-time oceanographic data, the system can predict changes in the marine environment over the next 48 hours. More types of marine environment data, hourly updates of various types of data, and the function to compare and analyze past marine environment data will be added. A mobile app will be available soon. Umitron secured 1.22 billion yen ($11.5 million US) from several investors back in 2018 followed by a $2 million funding from the innovation lab of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) lat year in an aim to help the local economy near Lake Titicaca in Peru improve their salmon trout farming productivity using the startup’s AI-powered remote sensing device Umitron Cell. Last year, the startup…

Umitron Pulse
Image credit: Umitron

Singapore- and Tokyo-based aquatech startup Umitron announced on Tuesday that it has launched a web-based ocean satellite data service called Umitron Pulse. Leveraging satellite remote sensing technology, high resolution marine data for various areas of the world can be checked on a daily basis, enabling aquaculture businesses to manage growth and risk more efficiently.

The service offers oceanographic data such as seawater temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll concentration and wave height, and can be zoomed in and out on the screen. In addition to offering real-time oceanographic data, the system can predict changes in the marine environment over the next 48 hours. More types of marine environment data, hourly updates of various types of data, and the function to compare and analyze past marine environment data will be added. A mobile app will be available soon.

Umitron secured 1.22 billion yen ($11.5 million US) from several investors back in 2018 followed by a $2 million funding from the innovation lab of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) lat year in an aim to help the local economy near Lake Titicaca in Peru improve their salmon trout farming productivity using the startup’s AI-powered remote sensing device Umitron Cell.

Last year, the startup partnered with Thailand’s CP Foods, the world’s largest shrimp farming operator, to launch a proof-of-concept on advancing shrimp farming. Earlier this year, they successfully crowdfunded a project supportiing branded fish farming in Ehime Prefecture in the western part of Japan.

See also:

Related news

  1. Aquatech startup Umitron secures $8.4M to help improve and sustain fisheries industry
  2. Japan’s Seak gets $2.7M series A, turning more people into farmers with all-in-one platform
  3. Japan’s Warrantee foraying into on-demand insurance in partnership with industry giants

Aquatech startup Umitron secures $8.4M to help improve and sustain fisheries industry

Masaru Ikeda Masaru Ikeda
SHARE:

See the original story in Japanese. Singapore- and Tokyo-based aquatech startup Umitron announced on Friday that it has raised from 920 million yen (about $8.4 million) from Innovation Network Corporation of Japan, D4V and two Japanese angel investors, Shinichi Fujishiro and Takeshi Matsuoka. The company will use the funds to strengthen its business foundation and R&D efforts. Umitron develops technologies to help fisheries outfits manage fish farming efficiently through digitalized operations. By installing a white-colored connected device called UmiGarden (as shown in picture above) on a fish crawl, it enables livestreaming of fish swimming behavior to realize school remote monitoring at any time. In view of possible poor data connectivity at the installation site, the Umitron device has an edge computing function so that it can optimize feeding cost by analyzing the school of fish. Since it is said that feeding cost accounts for 70% of all the expenses needed upon fish farming, optimizing it can give a direct impact on improving business profitability. Umitron developed a solution for feeding fish when they are hungry, focused on fish farming of specific species like tuna and Japanese sea perch as well as red sea bream which especially requires a larger amount…

UmiGarden
Image Credit: Umitron

See the original story in Japanese.

Singapore- and Tokyo-based aquatech startup Umitron announced on Friday that it has raised from 920 million yen (about $8.4 million) from Innovation Network Corporation of Japan, D4V and two Japanese angel investors, Shinichi Fujishiro and Takeshi Matsuoka. The company will use the funds to strengthen its business foundation and R&D efforts.

Umitron develops technologies to help fisheries outfits manage fish farming efficiently through digitalized operations. By installing a white-colored connected device called UmiGarden (as shown in picture above) on a fish crawl, it enables livestreaming of fish swimming behavior to realize school remote monitoring at any time.

In view of possible poor data connectivity at the installation site, the Umitron device has an edge computing function so that it can optimize feeding cost by analyzing the school of fish. Since it is said that feeding cost accounts for 70% of all the expenses needed upon fish farming, optimizing it can give a direct impact on improving business profitability.

UmiGarden
Image Credit: Umitron

Umitron developed a solution for feeding fish when they are hungry, focused on fish farming of specific species like tuna and Japanese sea perch as well as red sea bream which especially requires a larger amount of bait. The company also wants to help prevent wasting resources and pollution in the seawater by reducing overfeeding.

Umitron also has an office not only in Japan but also in Singapore because the aquaculture market has high potential in Southeast Asia while most of the industry’s majors have their Asia Pacific regional headquarters in Singapore. In fact, Umitron has been receiving support from Singapore’s Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority (AVA) and also projects from Indonesia’s Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (MMAF).

Some statistics show people’s consumption of marine products are increasing in accordance with GDP growth while large nations like China and India are getting wealthier. It is noted that the global market size of the fisheries industry is growing twice as fast than the global population growth rate, which indicates that the market potential is extremely huge. In addition to selling and implementing their solution to clients through aquaculture majors, Umitron plans to serve large fish farming firms directly.

Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

Reference:

The Umitron team
Image credit: Umitron

Related news

  1. Japan’s Umitron launches satellite ocean data map service for aquaculture farmers
  2. Aquatech startup Umitron secures $9.2M in pre-series B for Nordic, Chile expansion
  3. Japan’s Incubate Fund holds its first global edition of bootcamp program in Singapore

Recent Articles

Trends