US-based Finger Lakes Fish, which markets its land-based coho salmon under the LocalCoho brand name, raised $4.6 million (€3.8 million) in a Series A investment round to complete the company's first facility in Auburn, New York, where it expects to produce up to 350 metric tons per year.

The investors and board directors include Jim Murphy, president of indoor agricultural firm Grow Forward, former CEO of retailer Ahold USA Bob Tobin and former Credit Suisse M&A specialist Steve Koch.

Land-based aquaculture investment company Devonian Capital also participated in the investment round and is a key advisor to Finger Lakes Fish.

In April, Finger Lakes Fish named former Safeway Seafood Director Phil Gibson as the company’s CEO.

The farm is raising coho in a 43,000-square-foot recirculating aquaculture system (RAS), and has been selling small amounts of the fish into white tablecloth restaurants in the New York.

In October, Finger Lakes earned the world’s first recirculating aquaculture system technology (RAS) coho salmon farm to be awarded the Global Aquaculture Alliance's (GAA) Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) certification.

The company aims to sell up to 12,000 fish per month by the beginning of 2021. The farm hatched its first eggs in April 2018 and began selling its first batch of fish in September of 2019.

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Finance

Former Ahold USA CEO, Devonian inject capital into land-based coho farmer