Aquawise will exhibit its AI-driven water high quality tech at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025

Water high quality is a very powerful factor for aquaculture farms to observe to make sure their livestock stay wholesome. Whereas there are present methods to observe water high quality — sensors and water testing kits — they’re too costly for a lot of farmers in areas like Southeast Asia.

Aquawise desires to supply aquaculture farmers in Southeast Asia a greater strategy to monitor their water high quality through the use of AI and present satellites — no {hardware} purchases required.

Bangkok-based Aquawise takes satellite tv for pc pictures of fish and shrimp farms and feeds them into its physics-based AI mannequin that displays the water for issues like temperature, degree of chlorophyl, and oxygen ranges.

Aquawise’s platform can monitor water high quality repeatedly; conventional strategies monitor each day or weekly. Aquawise additionally gives monitoring and predictions.

“Water high quality is likely one of the most essential issues in aquaculture,” Patipond Tiyapunjanit, co-founder and CEO of Aquawise, instructed TechCrunch. “It’s like being a human: It’s a must to breathe. The aquatic life, they’re dwelling within the water on a regular basis. If the water high quality doesn’t keep on the optimum degree, it might trigger the stress, it might trigger illness outbreak, and lots of issues.”

Aquawise shall be showcasing its tech as a part of this 12 months’s Startup Battlefield competitors at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, which runs October 27 to 29 at San Francisco’s Moscone West.

Nineteen-year-old Tiyapunjanit stated that the thought for the corporate began with a love of shrimp that led to a analysis undertaking about shrimp larvae.

Whereas presenting his undertaking on the 2023 Younger Scientist Competitors, he met his co-founders, Chanati Jantrachotechatchawan and Kobchai Duangrattanalert, who had been advising a rival workforce. Jantrachotechatchawan and Duangrattanalert had been impressed by Tiyapunjanit and ended up advising Tiyapunjanit’s undertaking, which went on to win the 2024 Regeneron Worldwide Science and Engineering Honest.

Then the trio had to determine what to do subsequent.

“Now we have to step again and attempt to discover a very powerful drawback on this business,” Tiyapunjanit stated. “We discovered that it’s a water high quality drawback; 80% of farms in aquaculture at present are dealing with it. It price nearly $30 billion of losses every year.”

That grew to become the inspiration for Aquawise which was based in 2024.

Water high quality isn’t as large of a problem for aquaculture farms in areas like the USA and Europe, however is a a lot greater drawback in growing areas like Southeast Asia, Duangrattanalert instructed TechCrunch. Farmers on this area can’t afford monitoring know-how and as a substitute depend on climate experiences and handbook checks on the water, regardless of the potential penalties of poor water high quality.

Aquawise’s first concept was to make use of sonar to observe water high quality, Duangrattanalert stated. Their authentic concept was to make use of acoustic sonar to seize information from water — and even examined it on a tank of fish at Tiyapunjanit’s home — earlier than realizing that it will nonetheless be too large of a monetary hurdle for farmers.

“We wish folks, particularly in Thailand, and in the entire Southeast Asia [region], to really feel that they’ll use it with the intention to enhance their livelihood in time period of the neighborhood, the area and the farm itself,” Duangrattanalert stated.

Aquawise works with a number of farms and is utilizing the info it collects to proceed to coach its AI mannequin. The corporate desires to ensure its mannequin is correct earlier than it begins promoting to farms.

The startup additionally plans to lift cash from buyers within the new 12 months as properly.

“Aquaculture is the fastest-growing meals sector worldwide at present,” Tiyapunjanit stated. “It was the one business projected by United Nation as the easiest way to assist feed 10 billion folks in coming years due to its means to create excessive vitamin with very low quantity of emission.”

If you wish to study from Aquawise firsthand and see dozens of further pitches, attend beneficial workshops, and make the connections that drive enterprise outcomes, head right here to study extra about this 12 months’s Disrupt, October 27 to 29 in San Francisco.