The fund will be deployed towards the construction and operation of a 10,000-metric-ton-per-annum recirculating aquaculture system facility in Brunei.
8F Asset Management, the private equity owner of land-based aquaculture company Pure Salmon, has announced the first closing of its ‘8F Aquaculture Southeast Asia Fund’ at US$61 million.
According to Undercurrent News, the amount was raised from a global network of institutional, sovereign and family office investors. The fund is targeting $120m in total commitments.
The fund will be deployed towards the construction and operation of a 10,000-metric-ton-per-annum recirculating aquaculture system facility in Brunei, for distribution to the regional market.
The facility is being developed in partnership with the Strategic Development Capital Fund, a Brunei government trust sub-fund under the purview of the Ministry of Finance and Economy.
This second vehicle is a follow-on to 8F’s Fund I, which has financed Pure Salmon operations in the US, France, and Japan. Fund I closed oversubscribed in 2020 with US$359 million of commitments.
Read more: $359 million raised for Pure Salmon’s first four land-based salmon farming projects
8F’s investors to date include several sovereign wealth funds, pensions and insurance institutions, as well as strategic stakeholders, such as fish-feed giant Nutreco and leading global agricultural group Louis Dreyfus Company.
“This successful first close extends Pure Salmon’s footprint in Southeast Asia and is a significant milestone towards our goal of supplying the world with clean, healthy, locally produced protein while creating new opportunities for the local community,” said Stephane Farouze, chairman and co-founder of 8F and board director of Pure Salmon.
“The success of the Southeast Asia fund is driven by an increased need for innovative solutions to improve the sustainability of our food systems and to address the rapidly- growing protein demand from middle-income classes in the region.”
With the recently announced acquisition of Pure Salmon Kaldnes and the company’s newly formed partnership with ADIO in the UAE, it has “firmly put Pure Salmon on the map as a world-leading provider of sustainable protein”, he claimed.
As part of a plan to expand Pure Salmon’s footprint globally, 8F is working on follow-up funds in other locations, with further facilities planned in the Middle East and China.
