Shinkei Systems Deploys Poseidon Robots on Boats to Kill Fish and Extend Shelf Life

Shinkei Systems founder Saif Khawaja and Founders Fund partner Delian Asparouhov discussed Poseidon, a refrigerator-sized robot that fishermen install on boats to scan each fish with computer vision, locate the brain, and then pierce the brain and sever the gills so the fish dies before it can thrash or suffocate.

“A fridge-sized robot now rides on commercial fishing boats, promising near-instant brain pierce and gill removal to prevent stress and preserve premium seafood flavor”

mezha.net

TechCrunch says Poseidon is an automated, industrial-scale version of ike jime, a centuries-old Japanese technique traditionally performed dockside by trained fishermen at the moment of catch, and it frames the approach as preventing a slow death that floods the fish with stress hormones and lactic acid.

mezha.net

Khawaja told the El Segundo crowd that a catch that might normally have a 5-to-7-day shelf life can stretch to 12 or 14 days, and he said the company has cooked fish three weeks after coming out of the water with no issue.

TechCrunch also describes Shinkei’s vertically integrated model, where Poseidon machines are given to fishermen for free, fishermen are paid a premium price, and Shinkei takes full possession of the fish before it ships to a 16,000-square-foot plant in Tacoma, Washington.

In the same TechCrunch account, Shinkei’s in-plant sensor system scans fish and projects an individual shelf life for each one, and Khawaja estimates that roughly 18% of product is lost to spoilage just between dock and store.

At TechCrunch’s StrictlyVC event in El Segundo, Khawaja said the question of how to know if a fish is stressed out is central to Shinkei’s business, and he tied the company’s pitch to the idea that fish suffering is essentially invisible because fish lack vocal cords.

TechCrunch quotes Khawaja’s framing of the underlying premise from an essay he read in college, saying, "Its premise was that fish lack vocal cords, so the suffering most of them experience on the way to your plate is essentially invisible."

TechCrunch

The TechCrunch account also describes Shinkei’s consumer-facing rollout as a pilot running out of Erewhon’s Manhattan Beach location, where Erewhon sells Shinkei’s fish as Seremoni Grade Miso Black Cod.

In that same setting, Khawaja told the El Segundo crowd that the real selling point isn’t the animal-welfare story so much as the practical one around quality, and he said the company has cooked fish three weeks after coming out of the water with no issue.

Separately, mezha.net reports that Shinkei positions itself as vertically integrated and provides Poseidon for free to fishermen while paying a premium for catches above the average level, and it says the rollout is still pilot and covers Manhattan Beach.

TechCrunch links Shinkei’s approach to a U.S. seafood supply chain pattern in which a meaningful share of fish caught in U.S. waters gets frozen and shipped overseas, often to China, for labor-intensive work before being shipped back to be sold in the U.S.

“Founders Fund just made one of its most unconventional bets yet - backing a startup that kills fish with robots”

The Tech Buzz

In that account, industry estimates of how much American seafood is imported run as high as 90%, while TechCrunch also says roughly half of that, by some estimates, actually originated in domestic waters before making the round trip abroad.

TechCrunch further notes that reporting has tied parts of China’s seafood processing sector to forced labor, and it says those risks are part of why Shinkei’s experiment aims to reinvent the chain from catch to distribution under one roof in Tacoma.

mezha.net adds that Shinkei’s plant in Tacoma includes an embedded sensor system that scans fish and forecasts the individual shelf life of each specimen, and it says Khawaja estimates roughly 18% of production is lost to spoilage between dock and store.

The TechCrunch and mezha.net accounts both position the next test as whether buyers will pay for the quality and humane processing, with TechCrunch describing the pilot at Erewhon and mezha.net saying expansion depends on demand.