August 1, 2013 — A new breed of investors is starting to shape business growth across the globe. These impact investors, as they are often called, look to put money into businesses that generate strong financial returns as well as environmental or social benefits.
In the past decade alone, impact investors poured millions of dollars into new innovations, helping grow businesses like Stonyfield Farms, Zipcar, and Grameen Bank. These companies, in turn, help shift the way business is done in their fields. But despite their strong interests in healthy food, the environment, and local community growth, impact investors have made very few investments in sustainable seafood.
With a $390B market in wild capture fisheries, a $120B market in fish farming that is predicted to grow exponentially in coming years, and numerous businesses poised to take advantage of growing consumer interest in the quality and origin of their food, what keeps investors from engaging in the seafood sector?
Last summer, together with leaders in the impact-investing field, we set out to answer this question and find new ways to connect sustainable seafood businesses with the capital investments needed to expand their enterprises. Through our research, we found that investors were only seeing four to five viable business proposals a year: a number too low to make the kind of comparisons that would help them evaluate deals or reduce risk in their investment portfolios. They had the false impression that the fisheries and aquaculture sectors were too specialized, too complex, and without enough strong business ideas to merit building expertise in this area into investor teams.
At the same time, after years of working as consultants to sustainability-oriented fisheries businesses, we knew that there were entrepreneurs with viable business ideas out there. They just weren’t making meaningful connections with investors. To bridge this gap, we created Fish 2.0, a business competition that brings sustainable seafood businesses together with interested investors. Businesses compete for cash prizes and the opportunity to pitch their ideas to investors.
Read the full story at National Geographic