MariFish Inc.: Incubator for aquaculture startups - Ostend Fish Auction site (MariFish Inc.)

MariFish Inc. aims to transform the Ostend Fish Auction site into an incubator for startups and growouts (SMEs) active in the Blue Economy. In addition, the site will become a pilot test environment/living lab with access to sufficient volumes of good quality seawater. Within this EFRO application, funding is only sought for the infrastruture part of the project: the new building, the seawater installation and the lab infrastructure.

The exploitation of the incubator/living lab will be linked to an incubation program, in which specialized advice is provided for the SMEs in (zoo-)technological and business-related areas.

Initiallly the incubation and acceleration is considered of startups active in:

• Onshore cultivation of seaweed, fish, crustaceans and shellfish
• Onshore processing of marine mariculture production, e.g., preparing mussels/oysters for sale
• The dilution of imported mariculture products
• Supporting technology for carrying out the three previous activities (quality monitoring, big data, sensor technology, intelligent packing)

Subsequently, the activity domain can be extended to derived products and services, such as e.g., products of molecules refined from marine resources or aquaculture products (e.g., from seaweed).

By clustering the knowledge and networks of the partners, synergies will appear between the existing and new activities. The precense of strategic basic and applied research, performed by the knowledge institutions on site, will stimulate the technological and business development of the SMEs and will be an additional asset in attracting startups.