One of the key sources of innovation is the collaboration of different disciplines. For example when biology and physics met the science of biophysics was created. The introduction of IT has brought many benefits in many different industry sectors. Primefish Solutions is an Estonian startup that unites the knowledge from fish-breeding (aquaculture) and IT. Introducing automation and IT solutions to fisheries has enormous potential.

Primefish won the Ajujaht (Brainhunt) competition in 2009, the company resides in the Tallinn Tehnopol technology incubator and is actively working on their fish-farm automation system. Tigerprises talked to Martin Koppel (pictured below), the founder of Primefish, about the companys development.

What is the business idea behind Primefish?

Primefish Solutions is developing and selling fish-farm monitoring and management system which makes feeding more effective, production less time consuming and more precise and lowers environment risks. For fisheries it means increased production with lowered cost and risk level.

If before we wanted to do all the research and development by ourselves then now we are outsourcing most of the hardware development from companies experienced with sensor technologies. We are still doing software development by ourselves, at least in prototyping phase.

How far have you reached with the development of your idea? Do you have working prototypes?

We are pretty much on the schedule with our work. Prototype development is in process and we are planning to install it in the beginning of December. Kalatalu (fish-farm) in Härjanurme has kindly agreed to be the first pilot user and in case of successful testing also the very first buyer.

Who is on your team? What do you consider to be your teams advantage?

Primefish core team has currently 5 member and couple of advisors. We have strong software development and technology competence and also a long time aquaculture experience. It’s a little too early to specify our competitive edge competence, but one of them are definitely aquaculture knowledge and contacts.

Has the economic downturn influenced your business or the overall business of fisheries?

Since we founded our startup right in the middle of economical downturn, I feel that if we get this business running now, we can be pretty sure that from there on it can only get better and better. Sure it’s hard to make a first and second sale but Estonian government and EU is offering rather solid financial support for fisheries who are willing to invest into expansion specially when it helps to improve growth of startup companies in Estonia.

Do you plan exporting your solutions? Have you any specific markets in mind? Norway – the land of red-gold perhaps?

Estonian market is perfect for prototype testing and product development but too small to able business to grow. We plan to start exporting latest in 2011 to our nearest neighbor countries – Finland and Latvia, in longer term also to Denmark and Norway. Currently we are investigating export markets to get a better feeling of how many potential customer are there.

What are the main species of fish being rased in fish farms? Are your solutions only for fish or can they be used for other water species also?

The main species raised in Scandinavian fish-farms are not only trout and salmon but also whitefish and carp. In central Europe its catfish, seabass and seabeam. We are currently focusing on mainland fresh water fish farms since this is the field we are most familiar with. We wouldn’t limit our system with specific species, rather with need for different parameter monitoring and location. For example near coast sea cage based fish farms have totally different challenges compared to fresh water farms – starting from salty water and the need to make all electronic equipment 100% waterproof.

What are the main benefits of using your solutions?

Primefish’s goal is to tackle two critical issues faced by fish farms: the optimisation of food usage and risk of damage (read: the useless death of hundreds of fish) due to technological failure.

The solution of food optimisation is a an integration of automated feeding and water parameter measurement systems. The water parameters are monitored and the food is rationed according to the intelligence in the management software. This helps to save worktime spent on feeding and saves money either by using less food or by making the fish grow faster. Constant monitoring on the other hand is something what even a small fishery needs to prevent damages caused by infrastructure failures.

Today there are systems on the market offering solutions only for half of the problems. Primefish wants to create an integrated system that handles all the critical issues in a fish farm.