Indonesian start-up eFishery successfully completes Series B funding round

Indonesian start-up eFishery has announced that it has successfully completed its Series B funding round, securing funds to strengthen the company’s product development.

The funding round was co-led by Go-Ventures and the Northstar Group, together with the company’s existing investors such as Aqua-Spark and VC Wavemaker Partners. The company is developing four key products with the funding: an eFisheryFeeder, eFisheryFeed, the eFisheryFund, and eFisheryFresh.

“eFishery’s solutions, which directly support local fish farmers, also address wider issues, including strengthening food supply chains, alleviating global food shortages and helping to boost both Indonesia’s fishing industry and overall economy,” Go-Ventures’ Vice President of Investments Aditya Kumar said. “As eFishery expands first within Indonesia and subsequently regionally, we look forward to seeing these benefits grow exponentially.”

The company, based in Bandung, Indonesia, was launched in 2013 and offers fish and shrimp farmers “an end-to-end platform” with “access to feed, financing, and markets.” Currently, eFishery serves 24 provinces in Indonesia.

The company had a successful pre-Series A funding round in 2015, and a Series A round of funding in 2018. According to the company, eFishery’s business quadrupled between 2015 and 2018, and the company has remained profitable.

“Through the introduction of new technologies, we increase yields and lower costs for fish and shrimp farmers. With products that support the entire aquaculture ecosystem, from ponds to last-mile distribution, we help farmers build more profitable and sustainable farming businesses,” eFishery Co-Founder and CEO Gibran Huzaifah said. “This new funding will allow us to grow the company, roll out across Indonesia, and achieve our vision of being a leading aquaculture intelligence company. We are excited to partner with Go-Ventures and the Northstar Group, who we believe can add significant value to our platform.”

The company’s eFisheryFeeder is a “smart” device that offers automatic feeding coinciding with a mobile app where farmers can “can input fish/shrimp type, feed quantity and pellet size, feeding frequency, and feeding schedule.” The device also has an optional sensor that can detect vibrations in the pond.

Its eFisheryFeed, which according to the company “represents 80 percent of production costs,” is designed to help farmers manage costs. The eFisheryFund is a way for fish farmers to get access to financing, something that can often be difficult for aquaculture operations.

Finally, eFisheryFresh provides an online platform connecting farmers to buyers, in order to close supply chain gaps.

“This improves pricing transparency and visibility of demand, resulting in increased income for farmers and cost-savings for buyers,” eFishery said. “Buyers also benefit from access to high-quality, fresh produce. Data generated from the eFisheryFeeder allows farmers to predict their future yield volume.”

The supply chain efforts like eFisheryFeeder are part of why investment opportunities like Northstar Group co-led the funding round.

“We are really inspired by the impact that eFishery is having on the aquaculture supply chain,” Northstar Group Co-Founder Patrick Walujo said. “The company’s ability to deliver fish farmers the latest in smart-hardware integrated with cloud-based mobile analytics is transforming a very traditional business in Indonesia. We are proud to partner with the eFishery team and see great things ahead.”

The company’s funding announcement comes at the same time Indonesian fishery platform start-up Aruna announced its own successful round of funding.

Photo courtesy of eFishery