Hatch is inviting startups to apply for the fourth cohort of its aquaculture-focused accelerator program.
Written by: Hatch 4.0 / Agfundernews.com
It’s looking for eight to 10 companies from anywhere in the world, at seed or pre-seed stage, to join the 15-week program. Applicants should have a team of at least two people who can communicate in the English language, are able to dedicate 100% of their time to the business, and who have at least developed an initial proof of concept.
Successful applicants will get $130,000 funding — $75,000 will be in cash, with the remainder in kind to cover costs of the program — plus access to Hatch’s mentor network of over 100 experts from the corporate, science, technology, and entrepreneurial fields.
Interested teams need to be working on innovative, scalable, and sustainable tech solutions for the aquaculture space. That means startups working with aquaculture applications in mind, as well as teams currently focussed on other areas who feel their tech may have compelling uses in aquaculture.
While some previous graduates from Hatch’s program are natives to the aquaculture space, talents from outside are welcome and needed in the drive to make the industry more sustainable, says Moritz Mueller, head of marketing and communications at Hatch.
“We realised that bringing a lot of the skillsets and concepts from tech into aquaculture could greatly benefit the industry and improve its sustainability,” he says, explaining the original intent behind Hatch.
The idea for the accelerator was a simple one: that aquaculture has the potential to become one of the most sustainable ways of producing food available to the world.
Launching the accelerator in late 2017, Hatch co-founders Georg Baunach, Carsten Krome, and Wayne Murphy saw that the industry already achieved huge volume in terms of production – with around 53% of the world’s seafood derived from aquaculture. But they also saw that the industry was held back by a chronic lack of efficiency and innovation.
“The first order of sustainability is decreasing resource use per unit by increasing the efficiency in production,” Mueller says. To do that, Hatch had to look beyond the bounds of traditional aquaculture.
“We found companies who had never looked at aquaculture before – and we were able to demonstrate that what they were doing in their market […] could be applied in our market, with a potentially larger customer base,” he says. “While natives from the aquaculture space are always a great gain for us, there are benefits that come with an IT skillset or great business management skills, which are still lacking in aquaculture. So when we can pull in talent from other industries, that is fantastic.”
