January 12, 2019

InnovaSea Systems announced its agreement to acquire Nortek Akvakultur, a Norwegian aquatech company located in Bergen.

Once the deal is completed, Nortek Akvakultur will be integrated with InnovaSea’s Realtime Aquaculture unit to form the InnovaSea Instrumentation team.

With headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts, InnovaSea is itself part of a portfolio held by Cuna del Mar, an investment group based out of Jackson, Wyoming. Cuna Del Mar’s mission is to shift demand for seafood away from wild-caught populations and conventional fish farming systems to new production methods geared toward open ocean aquaculture that are economically viable while also being environmentally and socially sustainable. Since this segment is still in a nascent stage, Cuna Del Mar invests in early stage private companies, and targets the acquisition of assets for the development of new businesses, offering each company in its portfolio financing, governance, and advisory services.

Realtime Aquaculture is transforming how environmental monitoring is conducted on global aquaculture operations through the development of innovative, wireless underwater technology.

“Nortek Akvakultur brings us closer to the industry in Norway and adds a team of skilled developers with unique expertise developing solutions for the industry,” said David Kelly, CEO of InnovaSea. “Combining Realtime Aquaculture and Nortek Akvakultur is a logical step in growing the business and expanding opportunities both in Norway and globally.”

Since its founding 10 years ago, Nortek AS has grown to be a leading Norwegian technology company focusing on ocean currents and wave measurements.

“We’ve recently moved our operations from Oslo to Bergen, bringing us closer to the industry and our major clients,” said Tor Skoglund, managing director of Nortek Akvakultur. “This acquisition further strengthens our position by providing access to new technology that we believe can be a game changer as we work to help our customers monitor conditions in every cage.”

Currently, the company has installed its technology at more than 300 sites across all major aquaculture production regions in Norway.

“Nortek’s early transition to cloud-based systems has allowed us to successfully deploy hundreds of monitoring stations with a minimum of local effort,” said Atle Lohrmann, CEO of Nortek. “We are pleased to see how InnovaSea brings continued technological innovation to the community by using underwater communication as part of the solution.”

-Lynda Kiernan