The Gulf of Maine Research Institute on Wednesday announced it had sold New England Marine Monitoring, the first startup it had launched and incubated as part of its two-year-old Gulf of Maine Ventures initiative.
NEMM provides electronic monitoring, data collection and analytics services to the fishing industry. While fishermen currently use these services to meet regulatory requirements, Mark Hager, the company’s founder and CEO, has a larger vision for the company.
“The NEMM vision goes beyond meeting regulatory monitoring needs and is focused on using technology to enable data-driven, ocean-based decision making,” Hager said.
Vesper Company, a relatively new investment firm with ties to Maine, acquired New England Marine Monitoring for an undisclosed sum.
“We look forward to expanding NEMM’s capabilities and services for the New England fishing industry and also to continuing our work with the rapidly growing startup and tech community in Maine,” said Raj Gopal of Vesper Company.
Launching NEMM
Hager developed the idea for NEMM in 2019 based on his work on fisheries data as a GMRI staff member. GMRI, a non-profit research center, was at that time getting ready to launch its Gulf of Maine Ventures initiative, which was designed to fund and incubate for-profit business ventures that address the challenges facing the Gulf of Maine region and the globe.
“GMRI was already involved in [electronic monitoring], but my personal passion for entrepreneurial activity drove me to mention to them there was an opportunity to create a business here, not just a program at a nonprofit,” Hager tells Maine Startups Insider.
NEMM launched in November 2019 with three employees, including Hager as CEO. GMRI provided startup costs of approximately $350,000, according to Hager.
“We got to the point where we were operating with 10 employees and gaining momentum pretty quickly,” Hager said.
Now that the acquisition is complete, Hager will continue to lead the company as CEO. He has also acquired an ownership stake, he said.
“Having successfully launched NEMM and stewarded it through the pandemic, we’re excited to have NEMM move to the next level with an experienced partner that will provide tech and financial support to help NEMM quickly scale up,” Blaine Grimes, who oversees the Gulf of Maine Ventures initiative, said in a statement. “The opportunity to leverage private sector investment to grow this mission-driven business is exactly the kind of outcome we want for the promising young companies GMRI is and will be shepherding.”
Vesper Company will provide NEMM with significant new investment to grow its service to New England’s fishing fleet and develop its technology platform, according to Shamit Grover, a Vesper co-founder who has a home in Scarborough and said he plans to move to Maine full time this year.
“We have capital to invest and we really care about what Mark is doing in terms of supporting fisheries in Maine,” Grover said. “I overemphasize that we’re backing him to deliver a solution to fishermen that’s actually beneficial to the fishermen.”
Grover was first introduced to NEMM via the Roux Institute, which had accepted the company into its first startup residency program earlier this year. Grover also said the Roux Institute was one of the things that convinced him to move from New York to Maine.
“From my vantage point—and time will tell—there’s a massive sea change going on there,” Grover said, referring to Portland. “I think the place will be transformed in a very positive way over the next 10 years.”
Fishing innovations
Hager describes NEMM as “a full start-to-finish electronic monitoring provider” for fishing vessels, meaning they integrate and build monitoring systems, install them on boats, record and extract data, and provide analysis. Analysis is 70% of the business model, Hager said.
Monitoring is something required in regionally and nationally managed fisheries. Electronic monitoring has only really started gaining traction in the last five years, Hager said. Before electronic monitoring, it was all handled manually, with people like Hager going out on the boats and weighing and measuring the fish that were caught.
“We’re flipping that on its head and saying, ‘let’s use technology to do that,'” Hager said. Myself and eight of the other 10 employees were all previously scientists who went out on the boats and did that job, so we know what we’re trying to accomplish and know there’s a better solution.”
But NEMM is working to expand the amount and type of data it collects (e.g., adding temperature sensors) and integrating that data its collecting and offer business analytics and insights back to the fishermen to help them make better fishing decisions and improve their results. An example might be a fisherman being able to see that they consistently catch more cod at a certain location, at a certain date, when the water is a certain temperature.
“Those business analytics are really phase 2 and where we see a lot of growth out of the business,” Hager told MSI.
Hager also said it’s using artificial intelligence and machine learning to also lower the costs of the monitoring and data analysis piece.
To date, Hager and NEMM have focused on the groundfishing industry in New England, but its services could be used in any fishery around the world, from herring to scallops. The data the company collects and analyzes could also be useful to other industries that rely on the ocean, such as charter boats.
“We have been strategically focused here because for me and my employees, it’s our backyard,” Hager said. “We think if we nail it in New England, we can nail it in a lot of other places.”
