Innovation meets investment

The Aquaculture Innovation Challenge will be started by the Seafood Trad Intelligence Portal, Fresh Studio and Solidaridad on 6 December.

It will spark an event to bridge the gap between innovators and impact investors in the aquaculture sector which, in order to meet the world’s seafood demand, will be to grow by another 70m tonnes by 2050.

Aquaculture presents a significant opportunity to enhance food security, with the consumption and dependency on seafood for well-being at its highest in history.

Willem Schoustra, project manager for Blue Growth at the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs said: “Aquaculture has an enormous potential as a source of animal protein. There is one condition: we have to reach this potential in a sustainable way!”

“The Dutch government is continuously exploring how to contribute best to the development of a sustainable aquaculture sector around the world. The Aquaculture Innovation Challenge is an opportunity to bring together innovation and finance to achieve this goal.”

Vietnam, the fourth largest aquaculture producer in the world, has demonstrated its potential, but the emergence of the aquaculture sector raises major concerns in the country. The role of entrepreneurs will be the key to creating necessary innovations for a sustainable aquaculture sector.

In order to realise ambitions and innovations for the sector, access to finance and capital is critically important.

Finding bright minds and enabling them to realize their ambition by connecting them to finance and capital is one of the main target of the Aquaculture Innovation Challenge. 

The challenge is open for online and offline applications from 6 December 2016 until 18 February 2017.

Finalists will be invited to an intensive business plan bootcamp and pitching event, with the best business plans will be awarded a cash investment for initiating the business plan. Winners will be announced in June.