Executive Briefing · Aquaculture Technology

SHERP

Shrimp Enterprise Resource Planning

Powering Ecuador's #1 export industry with solar energy, intelligent aeration, and fully automated farm operations — independence from diesel, grid-electric, and from manual error.

275,000 hectares of shrimp farms in Ecuador
$5B addressable aquaculture technology market
↑ 56% overnight diesel price increase, 2025
40%+ energy cost reduction with SHERP with DO control

01 — At a Glance

Aeration today: diesel, muscle, and guesswork

A 675-hectare operation — some 70 four-hectare pools — runs on diesel aeration that cannot be automated: costly to run, impossible to monitor, blind to control.

~90%
diesel-powered aeration

14 HP Chinese diesel motors driving 16-paddle wheels — the industry standard.

8
kWh per gallon, at best

Low-performance generation: 8–10 kWh per gallon on paper, less in the field.

0.30
gallons per hour, per motor
0.050.50

Multiplied by roughly 350 motors, burning diesel every hour they run.

$5.20
$1.70$8.00

Source: EP Petroecuador price structure — 12 de Octubre al 11 de Noviembre de 2026 · Diésel 2 Industrial $4.72/gal + $0.50 logistics margin

$0.12
$0.05$0.40

Move the sliders. Diesel and grid tariffs move with politics and regulation — SherpSPS does not move at all.

Per 4-hectare pool 16HP Diesel aerator SherpSPS solar powered 16HP Electric grid paddle
Unit cost $3,000 $40,957 $4,000
Useful life 3 years 8 years* 3 years
Maintenance / month $50 $10 $10
Reliability 80% 95% 50%
Units per pool 5 1 6
Energy cost / year $26,325 $0 $2,527
Total cost / year $34,906 $5,240 $7,741
Total cost / 10 years $349,063 $52,396 $77,411
vs SherpSPS, annual 666% — 148%
10-year saving with SherpSPS $296,666 — $25,014

Assumptions: 13 air-hours per day · 0.3 gal/hr · $5.00 per gallon · 90-day cycles, 3 per year · grid at $0.12 per kWh · 35% profit margin
* SherpSPS useful life conservatively set at 8 years, including equipment repositioning

The cost equation is not close

Over ten years, a single 4-hectare pool burns $349,063 on diesel aeration. SherpSPS runs the same pool for $52,396 — a saving of $296,666 per pool.

The diesel unit is cheap to buy and ruinous to own: five motors per pool, replaced every three years, fed $26,325 of fuel a year — with no way to automate, monitor, or control any of it.

This is not the exception — it is the operating standard. And it is being rewritten.

Energy is everything

Cost and energy management are the key.

$240K lost per 4 hectare pond over 10 years under current diesel prices vs solar powered

Diesel dependency

Drives operating cost and exposes every crop to fuel logistics.

Poor oxygenation

Caps production capacity — or inflates cost through wasted motor performance.

Zero automation

Operations are never optimized; every cycle depends on a person and the farm on that person.

Fuel leaks

Pollute ponds, increase mortality, and damage the surrounding environment.

Price volatility

Geopolitical shocks land directly on the farm's P&L.

Manual management

Introduces inconsistency, missed cycles, and human error at scale.

SHERP — a hardware and software integrated platform for the whole farm

An integrated Enterprise Resource Planning system built specifically for shrimp farming: energy, aeration, feeding, sensing, and operations control in a single cloud-connected platform.

⚙

Intelligent Aeration

New diffusers and paddlewheels — or retrofit what you have.

☀

Solar + Battery

Hardware

Modular solar + BESS per aerator. No grid needed.

🍤

Automated Feeding

Hardware

Scheduled feeding aligned to the shrimp's natural rhythm.

📡

IoT Control & Telemetry

Hardware

Power, aerators, feeders, and sensors in the cloud.

🔬

Water Sensing

Hardware

Continuous readings feeding automation and analytics.

🌐

Farm-Scale Networking

Hardware

HaLow radio + Starlink, up to 1,000 devices.

✨

AI Assistant

Charts, reports, and exportable data on demand.

👥

Working Groups

Everyone sees exactly what their role allows.

📱

Mobile Quick Access

Works even over low-bandwidth farm networks.

Above the hardware sits the ERP layer: strategic and tactical tools for production management, turning every pond into a measured, controlled, and improvable asset.

Deployed. Operating. Today.

SHERP is not a concept — it is running on live farms. Below, the actual platform: real-time monitoring, per-pond telemetry, schedule design, and AI-assisted operations.

SHERP real-time monitoring dashboard with live farm map, pool status, and feeder telemetry

Command center for the whole farm

Every pond, aerator, and feeder on one screen — live status, satellite farm map with pool-by-pool state, and 600+ hectares under continuous supervision from anywhere.

Pool detail view with solar power, battery state of charge, dissolved oxygen, and system topology

Every pond, fully instrumented

Solar output, battery state of charge, dissolved oxygen, water temperature, aeration cycles, and feeder state — per pond, in real time, down to the individual device.

Schedule profile designer for aeration cycles, shown in Spanish

Operations designed, not improvised

Aeration and feeding profiles built cycle by cycle, versioned, and dispatched to the field over MQTT. Multilingual by design — shown here in Spanish, as used by farm staff.

AI-driven operations dashboard with dissolved-oxygen analytics across pools

Ask the farm a question

The AI assistant answers in plain language and charts: alarms, DO trends per pool or group, energy summaries. Queries become reusable report templates, shared across working groups — each user with exactly the access their role permits.

SHERP mobile interface showing key farm information on a cellphone

The farm in your pocket

A lightweight mobile interface gives field staff and managers the most important information at a glance — pond status, alarms, energy — even over the farm's low-bandwidth HaLow network.

Two roads off diesel

Grid Power public or private

  • Very fast installation time
  • Marginal capital investment
  • Energy in the range of <$0.25 per kWh
  • Still depends on grid or private-plant availability

Solar + Battery recommended

  • Absolute energy independence
  • Installation: ~1.5 weeks per pool
  • Moderate capital investment
  • Proven technology — modular, expandable per aerator

What changes on day one

40%+ reduction in energy consumption with DO control

Concurrent operations

No more staff walking pond to pond.

Instant recovery

No 3 a.m. manual restarts ever again.

Feeding that never stops

Schedules resume on their own, on the shrimp's rhythm.

Adaptive schedules

Change strategy per season — not in the field.

Lower risk, fewer people

No missed restarts, no inconsistency at scale.

Data that compounds

Analytics sharpen aeration and feeding over time.

08 — Market Opportunity

The largest shrimp exporter on earth, forced to change

#1 Ecuador is the world's leading shrimp exporter
275,000 hectares of active shrimp farms
$5B total addressable market for aquaculture technology
82% of Ecuadorian production hit by the 2025 diesel subsidy elimination

+223.5% total increase (2022→2026)

Diesel price per gallon — 2022 to 2026 escalation trend

Verified project assumptions and operating data; detailed substantiation is available through the due-diligence materials.

09 — Investor Proposition

An investment model built for repayment certainty

For investors and financial institutions, SHERP presents a uniquely de-risked opportunity within the high-growth aquaculture technology sector. Our financial model is built on guaranteed repayment, flexible partnership structures, and a stable macroeconomic environment.

09.1 — Business models

Two ways farms pay — both feed repayment

Every deployment is monetized through one of two simple structures. In both cases the farm pays SHERP on a fixed schedule; the difference is only who owns the equipment at the end of the term.

01 preferred farm model

Lease / Rent

SHERP owns the equipment. The farm pays a recurring lease for predictable access — no upfront capital required.

02

Credit installments

The farm buys the system on a payment plan, amortizing the equipment cost over an agreed term of monthly installments.

lease & credit payments

09.2 — Repayment structure

Shrimp buyers pay the Trust — never the farm

Every sale the farm makes carries a contract with its buyer stating that payment goes to the Trust Fund — not to the farm. Established in a reputable national or international jurisdiction, the Trust disburses predefined amounts through a fixed waterfall:

Shrimp buyers the farm's clients — every sale contract states they pay the Trust
Trust
Fund
  1. O&MOperations and maintenance of the farm systems are funded first, keeping production running.predefined amount
  2. Debt / investor repaymentPrincipal and agreed return are disbursed to creditors and investors.predefined amount
  3. Farm profitsRemaining proceeds are released to the farm according to the agreement.predefined amount

09.3 — Financial alternatives

Choose the structure that fits your mandate

Investors participate through three instruments — from fixed-income style lending to equity upside.

01 preferred investor structure

Long-term credit

Expected ROI: ≥18%

Secured project loans for farm systems, backed by the equipment and expected savings, with principal and interest repaid through the Trust Fund.

02

Co-investment / Joint Venture

A direct equity stake in the project vehicle for strategic partners seeking long-term profits and transparent distribution of proceeds.

03

Performance fee

A variable, growth-linked return based on measurable outcomes such as energy savings or increased production.

Where each instrument sits

Contractually secured · fixed Growth-linked · variable upside

09.4 — Currency risk mitigation

A dollarized economy protects the return profile

Ecuador's official currency is the U.S. Dollar. Sales, costs, repayments, and distributions are conducted in dollars, eliminating FX volatility and making long-term forecasting more predictable for international investors.

The farms cannot wait for the grid.
The industry cannot afford diesel.
SHERP is the solution.

SHERP · Shrimp Enterprise Resource Planning · Executive Briefing