Enabling Precision Aquaculture with multi-variable real-time sensing and Copernicus Earth Observation data

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With over 25% of the seafood consumed in the EU coming from aquaculture, Europe has been in the forefront of quality and safety control. However, 57% of the aquaculture products consumed in the EU are imported, mainly from China and other Asian producers. There is a sea of opportunities for increasing quality and efficient aquaculture in Europe, but it can still be vulnerable to unpredicted events such as contaminants, hypoxia, eutrophication and disease, that need to be quickly detected and corrected. Undersee is the enabler of Precision Aquaculture. We provide a plug-and-play integrated solution to monitor and collect aquaculture data supported by Copernicus Earth Observation forecasts, scalable and easy to use (hardware sensor and cloud-based platform), coupled with an innovative PaaS Business Model. Our plug-and-play sensors and our cloud system provide real-time assessment of critical variables (such as pH, pollutants, temperature, oxygen or salinity levels) and automated alarms in case of anomaly, namely forecasting Harmful Algae Blooms. Matereo was founded in 2014 and launched under the European Space Agency Business Incubation Centre in Portugal. Since then we have raised over 105.000€ in European research grants for developing Undersee. We launched our first paid pilot in April 2019 on a Tagus river ferryboat (Lisbon) and are negotiating an aquaculture pilot with Grieg Seafood, Norway. We have secured Letters of Intent by several interested clients. Our target markets are, besides Portugal, the six biggest producers of aquaculture in EU: Norway, Spain, France, UK, Italy and Greece. We have just secured $150.000 in investment from Katapult Ocean in Norway after a 3-month acceleration program. Sustainable aquaculture is needed because fisheries alone will not meet the growing demand for seafood. Undersee will enable Precision Aquaculture in Europe, ensuring quality and safety standards, increasing yield and leveraging EU businesses.