We came up with the idea for SHRMP.bio because we found the work on lab-grown meat intriguing. However, we also thought that it may potentially be slightly over-engineered for its purpose. However, we truly believe in the fundamental reasons for the development of cellular agriculture and recognise the necessity of these approaches. The world will need new methods for food production in the future.
At the start of 2024, we launched SHRMP.bio, utilising Startmate’s LaunchClub and the National Agriculture and Food Tech Incubator to develop the idea further. Our goal was to critically assess whether SHRMP.bio was a viable concept or, in fact, more of an SH**.bio idea that we should quickly abandon in favour of pursuing our next project.
We engaged in insightful discussions with aquaculture experts, aquafarmers, AgTech specialists, and founders and team members from various high-tech aquaculture companies in Australia and abroad.
The feedback we got was not overly enthusiastic…
However, it didn't quite feel right. There seemed to be a general trend in these sectors toward focusing on a short-term horizon of 2-5 years.
Building a hardware company cannot be accomplished in just two years, and biotech companies, well they require a lot more time even. But we are working on solutions for problems that will become really significant in maybe 15 years, so current prices aren’t really relevant.
Our audience didn't seem prepared to embrace the long-term vision behind our idea, or that of cellular agriculture, which already has some impressive active companies in Australia. Additionally, we seemed to be unable to clearly communicate the importance and relevance of thinking more creatively about food production.
We spent the remainder of LaunchClub conducting research to establish what the future of seafood could really look like over the coming 25 years. In May, we presented our findings at the Industry Conference AquaFarm.
But more importantly, we concluded that the potential opportunity in the aquaculture field might be even greater than we anticipated when we sketched the idea for SHRMP.bio.
And we concluded that:
The worst thing to do is not to do anything in this area.
Together with a group of international interns and consultants, we developed the idea into a high-level development plan over the winter and then, in Q4/2024 embarked on Startmate’s Buildmate programme with the goal:
to plan a first prototype for a SHRMPReactor - and depending on the outcome, either build it... or start raising money to build it.
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