I didn't expect the most interesting robotics deal I read about this month to be a fish-killing machine, but here we are.
@ShinkeiSystems builds a robot called Poseidon that sits on fishing boats. When a fish comes out of the water, the machine scans it, finds the brain, and pierces it within seconds, before stress hormones ruin the meat. It's the Japanese ike jime technique, except no craftsman is involved and it runs at sea, at scale. Shelf life goes from 5-7 days to 12-14. The company has cooked fish three weeks out of the water. Restaurants holding a combined 50 Michelin stars are already buying, and Japan is even importing American-caught fish now, which I'm told has basically never happened outside of tuna.
What convinced me this is a real business, though, is the supply chain math underneath. A lot of fish caught by American boats today gets frozen, shipped to China for gutting and filleting, then shipped back across the Pacific to be sold in US stores. Roughly 18% of American-caught fish spoils between dock and store. Shinkei's actual bet: kill at sea, then process and distribute everything out of one 16,000 sq ft plant in Tacoma, and beat that round trip on cost.
(The detail I also keep thinking about is from the
@foundersfund partner
@zebulgar who did the deal: AI and defense, the two most consensus trades in venture right now, are only 15 to 20% of Founders Fund's deployed capital. I would have guessed at least double.
He also said the fund keeps its exposure to crowded trades low on purpose.)