ShrimpTech JIRCAS from Tsukuba City, in Japan, and IMT Engineering from Tokyo, recently announced the signing of a Letter of Intent (LOI) to pursue strategic collaboration in the field of land-based re-circulating aquaculture. Through mutual trust and a shared history of over 20 years of joint R&D as co-inventors of the Indoor Shrimp Production System (ISPS), the two companies plan to contribute expertise and resources to support the advancement of sustainable fisheries production.
This collaboration will focus on both basic and applied research, feasibility studies, and the commercialization of new technologies to promote the growth of land-based shrimp aquaculture in Japan and internationally.
“We are honored to work alongside IMT Engineering as we take new steps towards making land-based shrimp culture more sustainable,” said Marcy Wilder, CEO of ShrimpTech JIRCAS. “We believe this collaboration will allow both companies to leverage our strengths and deliver positive impact to the industry,” he added.
Key Aspects
The key aspects of the partnership include IMT Engineering will provide technical support, including site surveys and facility design. For its part, ShrimpTech JIRCAS will focus on research and technology commercialization. The companies will explore joint business activities in response to potential client needs and HR exchange and cultivation of research staff to further promote innovation.
Both companies announced they welcome inquiries from organizations and partners interested in sustainable aquaculture. Marcy Wilder and Motoki Okada are open to contacts, they explained in a press release.
Groundbreaking System
The Indoor Shrimp Production System (ISPS), they say, is a groundbreaking system that enables high yields and high profits with stable and efficient production, and realizes the delivery of safe and delicious shrimp grown without the use of any drugs to consumers. The ISPS adopts a closed-circulation indoor system and is an innovative system that delivers safe and delicious shrimp (live shrimp, fresh shrimp) raised without the use of drugs to consumers.
The shrimp raised by the two-stage system is the Vannamei shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei) of the caridean shrimp family. Black tiger shrimp were the mainstay of shrimp farming in Southeast Asia, but the conversion to Vannamei shrimp, which offer excellent safety, quality, and disease resistance, is progressing rapidly, they explain.
Deep Tech Venture of the Year 2025 Award
On the other hand, and early this year, the “Deep Tech Venture of the Year 2025” award ceremony sponsored by Leave a Nest touched the ShrimpTech JIRCAS’s door, as the company received this award in the startup category. This award recognizes business ventures and start-ups that are involved in promoting new technologies based on deep tech with the aim of contributing to current societal needs.
The Deep Tech Venture of the Year Award thus recognizes business ventures that are expected to achieve rapid growth and become successful in the coming future. The award ceremony itself aims to present role models to the next generation of entrepreneurs and raise society’s awareness of the necessity of creating business endeavors that employ deep tech and scientific innovation.
ShrimpTech JIRCAS was founded with the vision of “delivering shrimp production technology based on cutting-edge science,” and in November 2022, received the ‘Glocalink Award’’ at Leave a Nest’s Ibaraki Prefecture Tech Planter Grand Prix. The company became a fully-fledged corporate enterprise in July 2023, and thereafter successfully raised funds which put us on track toward our goals of contributing to Japan’s burgeoning shrimp culture industry.
In this way, they have been recognized for their efforts to reach this goal by making full use of our core technologies pertaining to land-based re-circulating aquaculture and female maturation technology based on proprietary research they have conducted on shrimp biochemistry/endocrinology.
They assured “it is a great honor for our company to have received this important and special award, and we would like to take this opportunity to express our sincerest gratitude to our investors, and all of our friends at Leave a Nest Group and Glocalink.”
