News
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February 14 2024
Grieg Kapital looks back at a challenging, yet exiting 2023.
2023 was a challenging, but yet exiting year for Grieg Kapital. We faced rising interest rates and high inflation which had a significant impact on the financial markets. In times like these, our long-term perspective and willingness to support our portfolio companies truly stand out. Grieg Kapital made a total of 6 follow-up investment throughout 2023, enabling our investments to keep building the growth-story and expanding their footprint within each of their industries.
During the year Proximar, with active contribution from Grieg Kapital, successfully raised close to 1 Billion NOK in debt and equity and transferred the first fish to the post smolt grow-out facility, positioning the company to serve fresh salmon to Japanese consumers by the second half of 2024. OSAC continued on their path to prevent the loss of fishing gear placed in the sea, as well as making fishing more efficient, and the ongoing process to recruit a new CEO will leave the company well suited to tackle the opportunities that lies ahead. Fish feed manufacturer CFEED, co-owned by Grieg Kapital, has now acquired the international investment fund Kaltroco LTD as its new main shareholder. This positions the research-based company for significant growth. Portalo raised capital from Sparebankstiftelsen Sparebanken Sør as well as from an American venture-investor. This enables the company to expand their product offering and now also targets the market for grants and gifts with their brand new module. Grieg Kapital also led the negotiations that resulted in Rensefiskgruppen AS selling its facility at Talgje to the Hjelmeland-based halibut farmer Sterling. The company is now well-positioned for continued operations and aims for profitability in the coming years.
Last year was also one for making new acquaintances and despite the challenging capital markets, Grieg Kapital made a total of 3 new investments. Both Rayvn, Remora and Ignite became a part of our portfolio during 2023 and we are truly exited about joining all three companies on their path to becoming market leaders. Rayvn and Ignite represents an expansion of our technology and SaaS-exposure while Remora also combines this with the aquaculture industry.
RAYVN is the simple solution to help you prepare for and manage critical events. An intuitive and easy-to-use platform that lets you communicate, collaborate, assign and manage tasks and provide updates in real-time to anyone, anywhere via email, text or app notification. There is no time for learning curves in a crisis. During the year RAYVN was selected to deliver an integrated solution for regional and municipal emergency preparedness, risk assessment and critical event management to The Norwegian Directorate for Civil Protection. This marked an important milestone in the company’s history.
Ignite lets its customers optimize their procurement and enable smooth handling of regulatory measures such as corporate transparency and climate accounting. The company have now developed a software suite handling all aspects of procurement, also considering the vast number of regulations hitting industries worldwide supporting the modern economy. Ignite kept on expanding the organization and growing their revenue in 2023 and entered the new year with 60 dedicated employees, serving more than 200 customers.
Remora Robotics is an innovative player in robotic technology and has developed an autonomous net cleaner for the aquaculture industry, contributing to better fish health and sustainable development for the sector. Remora combines advanced sensors to monitor and inspect fish pens while simultaneously cleaning nets of harmful fouling. The sensor data from Remora can help farmers compare and enhance their understanding of the environment within the pens, the location, and the nearby region. Last year was an eventful one for Remora, categorized by both a new CEO and a solid commercial breakthrough. 2024 is looking very exiting this far and we look forward to embarking on the commercial journey together.
Throughout the year Grieg Kapital visited AquaNor, NASF, Venturekonferansen and many other happenings. We hosted a breakfast seminar for BAN Vestland and consciously expanded our network. We actively worked on increasing both the quality and magnitude of our Dealflow and we made numerous company visits all over Norway.
2024 has started well and we look further into the new year with optimism and excitement. Grieg Kapital is well positioned to capture good investment opportunities and don’t hesitate to reach out if you have an interesting investment proposition.
Grieg Kapital’s investment strategy is to invest where we can contribute actively with the Grieg Group’s longstanding history of business development. We invest in early stage and growth companies that can participate in the megatrends related to creating more sustainable protein production, scalable technology and digitalization.
