en.Wedoany.com Reported - Shinkei Systems founder Saif Khawaja showcased the company's automated fish processing robot, Poseidon, at the recent StrictlyVC event. The device can be installed on fishing vessels, using computer vision to identify the fish's brain position and perform precise stunning and bleeding, enabling humane slaughter and industrial-scale "ike jime" processing.
Traditional fishing methods cause fish to die slowly over minutes to an hour, filling their bodies with stress hormones and lactic acid, which affects flavor and shortens shelf life. Poseidon delays flesh decomposition through rapid killing and bleeding, allowing the meat to safely age for several days. Khawaja stated that catches typically with a shelf life of only 5 to 7 days can be extended to 12 or 14 days, and the company has successfully cooked fish three weeks after capture. Shinkei has also launched its latest in-plant sensor system, which scans fish bodies to predict individual shelf lives, quantifying this improvement.
Shinkei has expanded from equipment manufacturing to full supply chain operations. The company provides Poseidon machines to fishermen for free and purchases catches at prices higher than standard dock auctions, in exchange for full ownership of the fish. The catches are processed at a 16,000-square-foot facility in Tacoma, Washington, and sold under the consumer brand Seremoni, positioned as "ceremony grade" products.
In terms of market expansion, Shinkei has entered the menu of Erewhon's Manhattan Beach store, a high-end supermarket in Los Angeles, supplying products to restaurants that collectively hold 50 Michelin stars. The company claims its products have been reverse-imported to Japan, breaking the traditional perception that US seafood quality is inferior to Japanese domestic products.
Shinkei targets the high loss rates and processing outsourcing issues in the US seafood supply chain. Khawaja estimates that about 18% of products are lost between the dock and the store. Meanwhile, a significant portion of catches by US vessels in US waters is frozen and shipped overseas (often to China) for labor-intensive processing such as heading and gutting, before being shipped back to the US for sale. Reports have linked certain parts of China's seafood processing industry to forced labor, including Uyghur workers in Shandong Province and North Korean laborers in Liaoning Province. By integrating catching, slaughtering, processing, and distribution within a single facility in Tacoma, Shinkei aims to drive supply chain "reshoring."
Founders Fund partner Delian Asparouhov stated at the event that the fund maintains relatively low exposure to crowded categories (such as general AI applications), with its AI and defense investments accounting for about 15% to 20% of deployed capital. He noted that the fund's recent bold bet on SpaceX has yielded tens of billions of dollars in returns and predicted this victory would accelerate venture capital's shift toward hardware and the physical world. Asparouhov believes that investments like Shinkei, as well as New Zealand's Halter (a company making solar-powered cattle collars) and Ohalo Genetics (a crop genetics company), demonstrate that the fund's interest in the food and agriculture sector is not a one-off. He also remarked that most people would not want to deal with fish-slaughtering robots all day, and that is precisely Shinkei's opportunity.
However, Shinkei must simultaneously tackle the triple challenges of robot manufacturing, seafood processing, and consumer brand operations. The company needs to convince all parties in the supply chain to accept premium products and ensure that hardware can withstand hull vibrations and fish viscera erosion in marine environments. Its products are perishable, leaving almost no room for error, whereas pure software companies can easily handle such mistakes.
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