UCT Spin-out goes international
Based on the PhD research of CEO Dr Sarah Carroll, and other IP developed by her supervisor and co-founder, Prof Vernon Coyne, MariHealth uses proteomics paired with in-depth bioinformatic analyses to assess the health status of farmed fish and shellfish.
With a pre-seed investment of R1.5m from the University Technology Fund (UTF), MariHealth focused on commercial abalone farms in the Western Cape for the first two years.
“During 2021 and 2022, we collected a total of 2,000 blood samples from farmed abalone on the West Coast and in the southern Cape,” says Sarah. “We partnered with the Centre for Proteomic and Genomic Research to process these samples after which we did all the analyses.”
The purpose of this exercise was to gain a better understanding of what the baseline health of farmed abalone in this region looks like.
Simultaneously, Sarah participated in two venture accelerator programmes - UCT Graduate School of Business’ 12-week E-Track Programme as well as an online life sciences-specific presented by Oxford University. She credits these learning opportunities with helping her bridge the gap between her dual careers as a scientist and startup CEO.
Crossing oceans
At the end of 2022, Sarah started engaging with possible international investors and realised that MariHealth may need to pivot its focus from abalone, which is a niche subsection of the global aquaculture industry, to something that would gain more international traction.
Serendipitously, in 2023, MariHealth was accepted into the Olaisen Blue programme, a leading accelerator of sustainable aquaculture companies based in Norway, which included an investment of 1 million Norwegian Krone (~R1.7m) into the company.
Sarah spent three months in Norway to gain a better understanding of the local aquaculture industry and how the MariHealth solution could benefit the targeted customer segments.
“Following those three months, it became very clear to us that this was an unexpected, but great opportunity to explore business growth and development in Norway,” says Sarah. “So, our strategy now is to internationalise sooner than we anticipated.”
This decision includes pivoting MariHealth’s focus from abalone to fish.
“It just makes a lot more economic sense to broaden our horizons toward the fish side of things,” she says.
Sarah is currently back in Norway to pick up where
she left off earlier this year, which includes researching the requirements for registering a business, finding collaborators and establishing what kinds of support are available.
Series Seed Investment
The UTF and UCT through its Evergreen Fund invested further in the company in a Series Seed round as the company continues to make strong headway and already generating revenue.
Recent work at a local trout farm published in Fish Farmer highlighted the insights that MariHealth’s technology
can provide – two schools of fish of different ages, were maintained under otherwise identical conditions; analysis of the differentially expressed proteins showed that the small fish were actively metabolising, while the large fish were dealing with stress and maintaining homeostasis and should rather have been sold ahead of that point.
Follow the journey
Sarah writes a blog that is published on the company’s website, and you can subscribe to their monthly newsletter that updates you on latest installments of their journey. It’s a great way to participate in the excitement of a flourishing start-up and the role that a recent UCT postgraduate is playing in developing an international business.