A Golden Opportunity for Aquaculture Start-Ups

A new venture that aims to create companies of scale in the\r\nfields of animal health, agri-tech and/or aquaculture (AAA) has been launched\r\ntoday.

Called the Food & Agriculture Science Transformer\r\n(FAST), the first venture studio in Scotland has been developed by Deep\r\nScience Ventures (DSV) and the Roslin Institute.

The FAST programme brings together DSV’s market-led approach\r\nto creating science companies, and the Roslin Institute’s world-leading\r\nexpertise and facilities across genomics, veterinary biosciences, biotechnology\r\nand agriculture. Each year the partnership will launch several high growth\r\ntechnology start-ups comprising teams from the University of Edinburgh, the\r\nwider UK, and the rest of the world.

FAST operates virtually but will also be jointly located at\r\nthe Roslin Innovation Centre (RIC), which is based within the University of\r\nEdinburgh’s Easter Bush Campus and DSV London-based headquarters. DSV and\r\nRoslin share the vision to deploy innovative science and will select globally\r\nrelevant commercial and technology opportunities, recruit and train ambitious\r\nfounders from the Edinburgh ecosystem and the world beyond to create agricultural\r\nand biotech companies that can respond to the needs of farmers, the public and\r\nthe planet’s ecosystems. RIC offers flexible office and laboratory open-plan\r\naccommodation with quick, easy and secure subdivision and companies formed can\r\nbe based at RIC with access to state-of-the-art facilities.

DSV was established to create a founder-friendly method for\r\nlaunching high growth science companies with novel IP, and its approach is to\r\ndevelop each company and its team creation over the course of a year. Founders\r\nare recruited to investigate neglected areas in which high impact could be made\r\nby unifying innovative science from multiple technological domains. As projects\r\ndemonstrate increasing commercial viability, additional founders and advisors\r\njoin to generate the data and IP that allows a novel science company to hit the\r\nground running, alongside a minimum £50,000 of equity investment, which can\r\ngrow to £500,000.

DSV’s agriculture portfolio currently includes Beta Bugs,\r\nwhich is headquartered next to the Roslin Institute and develops high\r\nperformance insect breeds for the rapidly growing market for using insects in\r\nsectors such as aquafeed.

Edinburgh Innovations, the University of Edinburgh’s\r\ncommercialisation service, is providing support to the FAST programme with\r\nfunding provided by the Roslin Foundation and the UK Research and Innovation\r\nBiotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (UKRI BBSRC), to help\r\nrealise DSV’s ambitions to develop a new paradigm for applied science in the\r\nUK, and directs early stage researchers toward venture-focused discovery at the\r\nlevel of frontier science.

“I am very excited by the prospect of this FAST programme,\r\nwhich is a highly unique approach to company formation,” says John Mackenzie,\r\nCEO of Roslin Innovation Centre. “Attracting world-wide scientific and\r\nentrepreneurial talent and combining them with market-led opportunities to\r\ncreate companies of scale in Animal Health, Agri-tech and/or Aquaculture (AAA),\r\nFAST will hopefully find and create the first AAA unicorn company, which will\r\nonly augment our world leading position at the University of Edinburgh’s Easter\r\nBush Campus.”

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Edward Perello, associate director for agriculture at DSV,\r\nnotes the partnership is “creating much-needed room for science founders to\r\nbuild game-changing technologies and business models that work for food\r\nsecurity, climate change, and biodiversity loss. Over the coming years, our\r\nambition is to work with the right founders and partners, and create hundreds\r\nof high value jobs at the intersection of technology and agriculture. It's\r\nfantastic to have Roslin on board as our first partner, and we’re now\r\nrecruiting our founding teams.”

Source: The Fish Site