Fishbrain picks up $8 million round

Fishbrain, the mobile social network for fish… wait no, anglers, announces today it has raised a whopping $8 million round led by Northzone with Tokyo-based Recruit Strategic Partners No.6, LLC and New York-based Novel TMT Ventures as new investors, as well as existing investors Industrifonden, Active Venture Partners, GP Bullhound, and Edastra Venture Capital.

That $8 million was raised on the traction of 1 million fishermen and women using the platform, or perhaps on the key KPI that their users have shared fish measuring more than 1,192 American football fields from head to tail.

It’s not just “Foursquare for lakes” or “look at this fish I caught”. The app also offers Fishbrain Forecast, which predicts the optimal time, place and bait to catch particular species of fish in any given location using the local weather and crowd-sourced data in a unique algorithm built by scientists specialized in Complex Dynamical Systems & Artificial Intelligence.

These premium features run $4.99 per month or $39.99 annually, which isn’t the cheapest app out there, but consider in the U.S. anglers spend $48 billion annually on bait, tackle and gear, according to the American Sportfishing Association. Given the dedication to the hobby there’s plenty of value for Fishbrain to capture if they can convince enough fishermen that this is a good sell.

“Closing this funding round signals an important moment for FishBrain in terms of our international growth and ambitions.”

With the funding in place, Fishbrain says they will be expanding their presence in the U.S. market, as well as launching properly in Japan.