Thursday, August 15, 2024

Tidal launches from Alphabet's moonshot factory

August 15, 2024 - Tidal, a team that has spent the past six years developing and scaling novel underwater perception technology to help revolutionise the aquaculture space, launched in July as an independent company from X, the moonshot factory, Alphabet's innovation engine. With funding from Perry Creek Capital, Norwegian-based Ichthus Venture Capital (IVC) backed by Kverva, and Futurum Ventures, Tidal is poised to rapidly continue expansion and give salmon aquaculture a new level of insight to improve business performance and sustainability.

The Tidal platform

The Tidal team has partnered for years with industry leaders such as Mowi, combining their deep-rooted knowledge of fish farming with Tidal's expertise in AI, underwater robotics and data science. The result is Tidal's patented and commercially available underwater camera system and software platform, installed across more than 250 pens globally. "Tidal's technology focuses on providing precise and real-time data at scale to support the salmon aquaculture industry to address major challenges and unlock new opportunities," adds Rajesh Jadhav, CEO of Tidal.

The system allows farmers to track real-time growth and estimate harvest results, monitor and act early on fish welfare trends, act decisively in response to sea lice pressure, and feed fish with the industry's first fully-integrated AI-powered autonomous feeding capability. This suite of tools enables fish farmers to better understand and optimise their operations to reduce costs and waste, make data-driven decisions to improve production efficiency and planning, and proactively manage fish well being and the surrounding environment. "The Tidal system is the most advanced sensing and analysis platform in aquaculture, and undoubtedly the one with the greatest potential," said Øyvind Oaland, COO of Modi Farming Norway.

Next wave of AI

With this new investment in Tidal to catalyse ongoing growth, the company is establishing an even stronger base in Norway, and expanding to new geographies Chile and Australia. "We see huge potential in the value that Tidal can offer farmers. Based on our deep industry knowledge and understanding, we are confident in Tidal's capabilities and ability to succeed and provide solutions for key challenges and de-bottleneck growth opportunities within the aquaculture industry,"says Mats Malvig, Managing Director from IVC, the newly launched seafood venture investment company owned by Kverva. "Tidal has already established a strong track record working at scale, and we're excited to support them as they continue to expand their operations," said Brian Zingale, Perry Creek Capital, who led the round.

Tidal's aquaculture platform ties into the company's mission, to support global food security and protect ocean health. In a recent blog post about Tidal's graduation from C, Captain of Moonshots Astro Teller wrote, "We're excited to launch climate-based business like Tidal at a time when the world needs these moonshots more than ever." TIME magazine recognised the Tidal platform as one of the Best Inventions of 2023 in its sustainability category.

For more information, visit HERE.

The Aquaculturists

No comments:

Post a Comment