Quebec City-based XpertSea to expand with new capital
A Quebec City company that builds a high-tech device to gather data about aquatic organisms has raised $10 million in venture capital.
XpertSea, which announced the investment on Tuesday, sells its XperCount device to fish farms and hatcheries.
Valérie Robitaille, the company ’s CEO and co-founder, said aquaculture businesses haven’t traditionally had many tools to help them gather data.
“A lot of the production was done with very poor data or very poor information, which led to a lot of mismanagement and loss,” she said.
Fish farmers take samples from their tanks and put them in the device, which holds about five gallons of water. It then analyzes those samples using computer vision and machine learning algorithms. The device counts the number of animals, measures their size and, after multiple samples, it can assess growth and mortality rates as well as provide forecasts.
“A shrimp hatchery would have one of our devices and then they’d go around their facility and they could count anything from the micro-algae that they’re raising to feed the shrimp, to the shrimp eggs, to the shrimp larvae,” Robitaille said.
Because shrimp hatcheries generally sell larvae to producers who grow the animals into adult shrimp — and then sell them as food — knowing how many animals are involved in a transaction is important, Robitaille said, but that has been difficult to assess in the past.
Counting the number of animals in a tank allows producers to ensure they ’re providing the right amount of food, she said.
The device can also help ensure that all the animals are growing at a consistent rate.
“In aquaculture, you want all your organisms to be the same size. If you start having too many small ones with big ones, there can be cannibalism,” Robitaille said.
Before, producers would have to take larvae out of the tank and measure them by hand with a ruler.
“Now you can size thousands in just a few seconds,” Robitaille said.
While the company started with shrimp, it has now expanded to other species.
“We have over 80 species that people want to use the technology for, everything from sea cucumbers, ornamental fish, shellfish,” Robitaille said.
Robitaille studied marine biology and then worked with optics technology in a marine environment while she was doing her master’s.
XpertSea’s device is being used at 150 facilities in 48 countries. It uses two different imaging concepts — optics and photonics — as well as machine learning to gather information.
“It’s really by combining these different concepts that we’re able to go get the maximum information about aquatic organisms,” she said.
The system also has to be able to deal with unpredictability.
“This is a live environment. Sometimes there’s debris, sometimes the natural tendency of the organism is to cluster, sometimes there’s mortality,” she said.
XpertSea plans to use the investment to expand its sales team in Asia and South America as well as hire engineers in Quebec City and Montreal. The company currently employs about 30 people, and Robitaille expects that to double during the next year or two.
Robitaille said she believes farmed seafood can help feed the world in a more sustainable way, consuming less fresh water than other land-based meat production.