VAKI Brand Guidelines: The Kópavogur Fish-Counter Maker Heading Back to Its Founder

An Icelandic equipment maker that has changed hands three times.

VAKI makes equipment for fish farms: counters, graders, fish pumps and cameras that estimate biomass. Its company name is VAKI Aquaculture Systems Ltd., and it is based in Kópavogur, in Iceland’s capital region, with offices in Sandnes in Norway and Puerto Montt in Chile. The company says it was founded in Iceland in 1986, and its website names Hermann Kristjánsson as VAKI’s original owner and founder. In 2026 it marks forty years in business, and its own page of figures says its products serve customers in more than 60 countries through sales and service teams in four regions.

Its first change of owner came in 2016. On 19 October 2016 The Fish Site reported that Pentair Aquatic Eco-Systems, part of the US water-technology group Pentair, had agreed to acquire Vaki Aquaculture Systems Ltd, which it called a leading aquaculture equipment manufacturer based in Kópavogur. The deal closed in early November: Fish Farming Expert reported on 4 November 2016 that it had been finalised that day, and The Fish Site confirmed the acquisition on 7 November. Pentair’s statement at the time described VAKI as focused on fish handling, counting and grading, with technology for biomass estimation, and said its products were used in more than 50 countries. Fish Farming Expert added that VAKI would keep its own identity within the Pentair group.

Three years later VAKI changed owners again. In May 2019 Pentair announced plans to leave the aquaculture market by selling its Aquatic Eco-Systems business, Aquaculture North America reported. On 17 December 2019 Merck Animal Health, the animal health division of the US drug company Merck & Co., announced that it had completed its acquisition of Vaki from Pentair. Merck said VAKI would be a leading brand under its Biomark business, focused on fish counting and size estimation from freshwater to saltwater rearing. Biomark, an electronic identification company for fisheries and wildlife research, had come to Merck earlier that year with its purchase of Antelliq.

The latest chapter comes from VAKI itself. Its website says Merck Animal Health has entered a definitive agreement under which Hermann Kristjánsson will acquire all VAKI assets and operations, and that “in 2026, we’re becoming an independent company again.” It names Gunnar Óli Sölvason as managing director of the new team and describes a planned merger with Ration, a company working in computer vision, artificial intelligence and automation.

Move, grade, count, connect.

VAKI sorts its range by what the equipment does to the fish. Its home page runs through six verbs and nouns in order — Move, Grade, Count, Biomass Estimation, Connect and Improve — and gives each a product family. Fish pumps transfer fish, and the company says they come in three sizes, each in a basic or a smart model. Graders sort fish by size automatically across several tracks.

Counting is the oldest thread. VAKI says it has been at the forefront of fish counting technology for decades, and its current counters use scanning cameras and computer vision, with a saved image kept for each count so it can be checked later. The range runs from the large Macro and Macro Exel to the Micro for hatcheries and the Nano for the smallest fish, with a version of the Macro for shrimp. Separate Wellboat FishCounters, including channel and smolt counters, are built for wellboat operations.

Two newer products work with data rather than water. SmartFlow ties the smart pumps, graders and counters into one system, with remote monitoring, automation and reporting from a single view; the company stresses that it is not a separate product but the way the rest of its equipment works together. BiomassDaily measures average weight, growth and size distribution around the clock, which the company says is done without handling the fish.

The planned link with Ration points further in the same direction. VAKI says Ration’s RationFEED detects uneaten pellets in tank outflows and adjusts feeding to appetite, and that RationOVA applies computer vision to counting fish eggs and checking their quality. It says the combined business will focus more sharply on land-based aquaculture.

How aquaculture suppliers present themselves.

Aquaculture suppliers sell to fish farmers and other professional buyers, and their brands are shaped by the places their equipment works. The pictures that recur across the sector are aerial views of circular pens floating in a fjord or a sheltered bay, rows of plastic rings linked by mooring lines, and a feed barge moored beside them. Seen from above, a fish farm is a set of simple shapes on dark water, and many suppliers lean on that geometry in their photography and graphics.

Closer in, the imagery turns to working detail: net cages lifted at the edge of a pen, feed pellets and silos, hoses carrying feed out to the rings, cameras and sensors lowered into the water, and divers or remotely operated vehicles inspecting nets below the surface. Land-based farming adds a different picture, of tanks, pipes and filtration halls indoors. Service boats and workboats appear in many catalogues, because service and maintenance at sea are part of what these suppliers sell.

In many identities colour follows the setting: blues, greens and greys stand in for sea and coast, and a brighter accent, often orange or yellow, echoes the buoys, floats and safety gear that make equipment visible on the water. Type is often a plain sans, chosen for technical documents, product sheets and dashboards as much as for advertising.

Trade fairs remain an important stage for these brands. Aqua Nor in Trondheim and conferences such as AquaVision bring farmers, feed makers and equipment suppliers together, and stands there carry the same mix of pen models, barge cut-aways and screens of feeding software. The guides in this series look at how individual suppliers present themselves within that shared visual language.

Four capitals kept through three owners.

The company writes its name as VAKI, in capitals, and its website footer adds a trademark sign to the name. The capitals have outlasted every owner. Fish Farming Expert reported in 2016 that VAKI would keep its identity within Pentair, and in 2019 Merck chose to run it as a named brand inside Biomark rather than fold the products into its own name. In 2026 the company’s pages carry two short lines that sum up how it sees itself: “Building the Future of Aquaculture Together” and “Setting the standard in aquaculture since 1986.”

The anniversary is used as a design device. A page headed “Ready for the next 40 years” sets the dates 1986 and 2026 side by side, and the company’s figures panel lists forty years in aquaculture next to the number of countries served. The product menu is short and plain — pumps, graders, counters, wellboat counters, SmartFlow and BiomassDaily — and the counters page leads with what the machines do before it gives sizes, weights and capacities for each model.

The verbs on the home page carry much of the brand’s voice. Move, Grade, Count and Connect head the product sections, each with a number from 01 to 06, and every product family sits under one of them. The new owner’s plans, as VAKI describes them, keep the counters, pumps, graders and SmartFlow at the centre and add computer vision from Ration on top.

For a design guide, VAKI shows how a small engineering name can survive several changes of owner by keeping its capitals, its home town and a plain, task-led product language. Compare PHARMAQ, a Norwegian fish-health business that also kept its name inside a larger animal health group, and AKVA group, another supplier of fish-farm technology. For this guide we use a North Atlantic navy, a glacier blue and a basalt grey with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep VAKI’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.