Name: James Arthur Smith, Seatopia
Uploaded: 2026-07-13T19:00:00.000Z
Duration: 12 min 54 s

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More from theCUBE + NYSE Wired: ACTAI Maui 2026

James Arthur Smith

Co-Founder & CEO

Seatopia

play_circle_outline Seatopia: Outcome-Based, Lab-Verified Seafood Transparency Prescribed by Functional Medicine Practitioners

play_circle_outline Large structured database tying fisheries, geography, and practices to nutrient profiles.

play_circle_outline Customer stories showing reduced mercury and improved biomarkers after switching to Seatopia.

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James Arthur Smith, Seatopia

James Arthur Smith

Co-Founder & CEO Seatopia

John Furrier

>> All right. We're back here in Maui's, theCUBE's special coverage and it's been a great weekend here exploring the curious minds of all the participants and just unpacking the future where we are, where we're going. But one of the things I'm most impressed about is just the scientific nature of making things better. Seatopia's been one of those things where when you look at the seafood, the venture you're working on, you had a huge, I don't call it activation, but you had a great presence here with the dinner, your team, and the tests you can take. Talk about the venture you have right now, because it's really exploring the health side of food, seafood, and some of the things you got going on.

James Arthur Smith

>> Yeah. Thanks, John. I mean, Seatopia is about bringing clarity and optionality to an industry that was notoriously opaque. So the commoditization of seafood hasn't enabled or facilitated rapid adoption of new technology. And a lot of the technology for producing healthier seafood stagnated in university pilot projects. So there are a handful of certification systems out there, schemes that people might be familiar with, but most consumers are very confused by all of this. So you have, for example, BAP, ASC, MSC, these are different sustainability certifications, but they're all sort of process-based on the front end. As a consumer, what we found was most consumers thought that was nice, that there's some sort of sustainability thing, but they were very confused by what it actually meant to them because sustainability for a fishery on the other side of the world, nice. How does it impact my health? Which one's the cleanest? Which one's the healthiest? What Seatopia is doing through third party lab testing of every lot of seafood is providing a certification on the outputs, the outcomes. So we quantify the mercury levels to ensure that it's safe enough for a pregnant woman, for example, to consume seven days a week. We quantify the presence of microplastics. And zero products that we sell or we'll put our brand on have any detectable levels of microplastics. Microplastics being defined as 1000th of a millimeter. And then we also quantify the actual nutrients that's in seafood. So the milligrams per serving of DHA and EPA. And what's happened since we've been putting this attention on the quality of seafood is that we found that people who are on the sidelines for this entire industry all of a sudden are coming in and wanting to participate and eat seafood. For example, functional medicine doctors, nutritionists, health coaches are now prescribing Seatopia in a way that they couldn't before when seafood was generalized or commoditized. You can actually say when they look at Seatopia products, how much is in it and also what's not in it.

John Furrier

>> Why is this problem here? Is it because of the expansion of the food supply and seafood, lack of process? Is it a state of quality control? What's the core problem? Why is this happening? What's the reason in your opinion? What have you found? Or what's your thoughts?

James Arthur Smith

>> We're dealing with a multi hundred billion dollar year commodity. It's the second-largest commodity traded. Historically, you had a lot of that coming from wild caught sources and those sources were very disparate around the world and very unpredictable in the aggregation of them. So for example, a fishery might have an amazing season and catch far more than they expected or they might catch nothing. Meanwhile, you have a defined number of retails, distributors, buyers that are looking for specific products. If a fishery comes in with a massive catch of something that doesn't actually meet what the buyers wanted, historically it would just be relabeled or mislabeled and sold through those same channels. So the global distribution of seafood historically has been opaque, perhaps intentionally. It optimized for speed to market of a highly perishable commodity as opposed to veracity of data and authenticity. None of that matters though to a consumer who wants to know what they're consuming. Today, consumers of eggs have so much optionality. It's almost confusing. They have cage-free, they have pasture rays, they have organic, they have all these options. With seafood, historically we had these sort of mythologies, is it wild or farmed? That doesn't actually tell you anything about the nutritional quality. When I'm consuming my eggs, I'm interested in the pasture raised ones because I believe that it's going to be more nutrient-dense. And we've seen, for example, brands like Vital Farms that went to IPO had incredible success bringing a traditionally opaque industry with more transparency and focus on quality. And we're doing the same thing for seafood, which arguably is a much larger industry and even more opaque. But I believe that consumers are demanding more questions and we're riding that wave of providing more transparency behind the scenes.

John Furrier

>> People want to know what's in their food. I mean, that's awesome. I mean, I love that you're doing this because I wanted to get that out because I think it's super important people to understand the macro, but then there's actual real benefits on health. Talk about some of the things you're seeing because you guys have the ability to measure people's take on what's happening in their body and then the food matches kind of what they need. Talk about the impact on the health, diet. I know you got some stats. Share some data. At the end of the day, I buy into a supply from Seatopia. What's the results going to look like? That's what people care about.

James Arthur Smith

>> Yeah. Yeah. This is the most exciting part of having data. So we've been lab testing seafood from around the world and masks one of the largest databases of seafood data. So we've been testing mercury and microplastics to see what the sort of cleanliness is, but also the nutrient density. And we've been able to create this structured database of how different fisheries around the world, different geographic locations and different inputs, different farming practices affect the nutrient density. And tying that back to human health, we said, "Wow, our fish can actually make people healthier because these particular fish are cleaner and more nutrient dense." Talking about, for example, every piece of fish having the DHA and EPA, the omega-3s on them. Our king salmon, for example, that we had that first night has 3,400 milligrams of EPA and DHA. What does that mean as a consumer? Well, historically people said, "Oh, it's healthy. You should eat more seafood." Well, we now are sending a at-home kit that you can test the Omega Index at home, send it into the laboratory and get the results back and see the percentage of EPA and DHA in your red blood cells. The Omega Index is what this is referring to. The Omega Index is a peer-reviewed clinical studied measure-

John Furrier

>> So you can actually take a baseline, know where you're at, and then get the food to up level it and get the levels that are in the more better ranges basically?

James Arthur Smith

>> Yes, yes. You can know your numbers and eat to elevate. You can literally ... We're transitioning from like, "Oh, food is healthy too. This food is measurably impacting your health." And there's peer-reviewed studies that show having an Omega Index above eight is associated with extending life and having on average five years longer lifespan, having an Omega Index on the lower end, like four and below as many Americans unfortunately have, is inversely as detrimental as being a cigarette smoker. You can simply increase your health by increasing your Omega Index, and seafood can measurably do that. And when you have seafood that's quantifiably dense, you can predictably get outcomes.

John Furrier

>> And so you got some here. Let's take a hit while we're here. You got some-

James Arthur Smith

>> We brought some salmon or caviar here.

John Furrier

>> Okay. Let me do a bump on here a little caviar.

James Arthur Smith

>> Yeah. Let's do a bump. So caviar bumps are a thing because many, many years ago-

John Furrier

>> Caviar bumps. Oh, wrong....

James Arthur Smith

>> Yeah, do that bump. Do that bump. That's a Maui style bump. Caviar bumps, it's fun because if you're at a party, you don't have to share the spoon, you just put it on here. But back in San Francisco, around the turn of the century gold rush, sturgeon caviar became really popular. And then people started taking cod row and dying it was squid ink. So the traders would then put a bump on your fist and you could see if it leaked the squid ink that it was fake. So that tradition has continued and we do it today just for fun.

John Furrier

>> Caviar bumps, new trend, breaking it here on theCUBE. I get addicted to that actually. It's pretty good.

James Arthur Smith

>> In that one teaspoon, you got 250 milligrams of DHA, which is pure brain food. Your brain is DHA, your eyeballs are DHA. I'm not going to say it's better than coffee, but it's very complimentary to supporting your brain.

John Furrier

>> And I can buy that.

James Arthur Smith

>> You can get this and all the products delivered to your home. We ship nationwide and we will send you the Omega ticks.

John Furrier

>> We'll see you around.

James Arthur Smith

>> It's seatopia.fish.

John Furrier

>> seatopia.fish. I can have meals sent to me. Do I freeze them, put them in the fridge? How do those work?

James Arthur Smith

>> We send it straight to your home. It's all super frozen on dry ice. We have three PLs on the East Coast and on the West Coast and in the South. Free shipping orders over $500. You stock up on this and you have the nutrition to move the needles on very important biomarkers of health.

John Furrier

>> What's the coolest thing you've seen come out of this from someone's personal experience, story, that you could share?

James Arthur Smith

>> Oftentimes people come to us because their functional medicine doctor or nutritionist recommended, "Hey, your mercury levels are too high. Your mega levels are too low. You need to do something about it." And the only trustworthy source that is testing for mercury and microplastics and quantifiable DHA is Seatopia. So they're getting recommended. And then I get screenshots of our customers, they send them to us like success stories, "This is my function health lab results." And you can see over time where their mercury levels were here. And then simply by changing what they've been eating, like they were going to poke and getting ahead, now they're eating Seatopia and their mercury levels come down.

John Furrier

>> I mean, gone are the days of using a scale and kind of like the hand waving advice, armchair advice. "Hey, eat more fish. It's good for you. Brain food." I mean, well, what does that mean? Yeah. Omega levels clearly-

James Arthur Smith

>> Quantified....

John Furrier

>> data to back it up and saying, "Hey, longevity, extended life basically."

James Arthur Smith

>> It really does. The data is there and now we can predictably dose it. The beautiful thing is also enjoyable, right? Really great quality seafood. Also tastes great. It doesn't require anything. It shouldn't taste fishy. There's no such thing as fishy fish that aren't starting to oxidize. They become fishy when they're poorly handled or been oxidizing. This is clean, it's pure, it smells like the ocean. And the receptors in our brains are looking for this because we're biologically evolved consuming these things. That's why it's an essential fatty acid.

John Furrier

>> Well, I love what you're doing. And again, great to see the team here. The dinner you had the first night was phenomenal. Thanks for coming on theCUBE. Appreciate it. Good to see you.

James Arthur Smith

>> My pleasure.

John Furrier

>> All right. Year two for theCUBE, day three here at ACTAI Global community of leaders. Builders, innovators, and investors all getting together to really talk about what we're doing today in the world of tech and how it's evolving in the future. Thanks for watching.

James Arthur Smith, Seatopia

John Furrier

James Arthur Smith

John Furrier

James Arthur Smith

John Furrier

James Arthur Smith

John Furrier

>> So you can actually take a baseline, know where you're at, and then get the food to up level it and get the levels that are in the more better ranges basically?

James Arthur Smith

John Furrier

>> And so you got some here. Let's take a hit while we're here. You got some-

James Arthur Smith

>> We brought some salmon or caviar here.

John Furrier

>> Okay. Let me do a bump on here a little caviar.

James Arthur Smith

>> Yeah. Let's do a bump. So caviar bumps are a thing because many, many years ago-

John Furrier

>> Caviar bumps. Oh, wrong....

James Arthur Smith

John Furrier

>> Caviar bumps, new trend, breaking it here on theCUBE. I get addicted to that actually. It's pretty good.

James Arthur Smith

John Furrier

>> And I can buy that.

James Arthur Smith

>> You can get this and all the products delivered to your home. We ship nationwide and we will send you the Omega ticks.

John Furrier

>> We'll see you around.

James Arthur Smith

>> It's seatopia.fish.

John Furrier

>> seatopia.fish. I can have meals sent to me. Do I freeze them, put them in the fridge? How do those work?

James Arthur Smith

John Furrier

>> What's the coolest thing you've seen come out of this from someone's personal experience, story, that you could share?

James Arthur Smith

John Furrier

James Arthur Smith

>> Quantified....

John Furrier

>> data to back it up and saying, "Hey, longevity, extended life basically."

James Arthur Smith

John Furrier

>> Well, I love what you're doing. And again, great to see the team here. The dinner you had the first night was phenomenal. Thanks for coming on theCUBE. Appreciate it. Good to see you.

James Arthur Smith

>> My pleasure.

John Furrier