Shinkei Systems automates fish processing to reduce supply chain waste

Earlier this week, at an event in Los Angeles, Shinkei Systems founder Saif Khawaja raised the question of how to determine if a fish is stressed. His company addresses this by manufacturing Poseidon, a refrigerator-sized robot that fishermen install on their boats to automate ike jime—a centuries-old Japanese technique for killing fish instantly to delay decomposition. By automating this process, Shinkei aims to address supply chain waste; Khawaja attributes roughly 18% of product lost to spoilage between the dock and the store. While a standard catch has a 5-to-7-day shelf life, Shinkei’s process extends this to 12 or 14 days. Khawaja stated that the company already supplies fish to restaurants holding a combined 50 Michelin stars, and reported that Japan has begun importing American-caught fish into its own markets, a development that has reportedly never happened before.

To scale this, Shinkei operates a vertically integrated model. The company provides its Poseidon machines to fishermen for free and pays a premium for the fish in exchange for full possession of the catch. The fish are then processed at Shinkei’s 16,000-square-foot plant in Tacoma, Washington, and sold under its consumer brand, Seremoni, which is currently piloting at Erewhon in Los Angeles. This domestic processing model challenges the U.S. seafood supply chain. Currently, industry estimates of how much American seafood is imported run as high as 90%, and roughly half of that imported seafood actually originated in domestic U.S. waters before being shipped abroad for processing. Much of this processing occurs in China. Reporting has tied parts of China’s seafood processing sector to forced labor, including Uyghur workers in Shandong province and North Korean labor in Liaoning. By processing catches in Tacoma, Shinkei aims to offer a domestic alternative.

This physical-world focus attracted Founders Fund, a venture capital firm. Delian Asparouhov, a partner at Founders Fund, noted that “there’s essentially nobody else on Earth who wants to spend their life on robots that kill fish.” Asparouhov stated that the firm intentionally keeps its exposure to generic AI applications relatively low, with AI and defense capital accounting for something like 15% to 20% of the fund’s deployed capital. Instead, the firm has backed other physical-world and agricultural hardware companies, such as Halter in New Zealand and Ohalo Genetics, alongside its early bets on SpaceX.

To succeed, Shinkei must navigate several distinct operational challenges across its integrated model:

• Robotics: Deploying and maintaining the Poseidon machines on fishing boats.
• Processing: Scaling operations at its Tacoma facility to compete with overseas processing.
• Consumer brand: Building market demand for its Seremoni brand and convincing buyers to pay a premium for the fish.

Why it matters

Shinkei Systems is attempting to vertically integrate the seafood supply chain by deploying robotics and AI to automate the ‘ike jime’ slaughter process, aiming to reduce spoilage and compete with the current practice of shipping U.S.-caught fish overseas for processing.