Indonesian agritech startup eFishery today announced that it has raised a US$4 million funding round from Aqua-spark, Wavemaker Partners, 500 Startups, Maloekoe Ventures, Social Capital, Unreasonable Capital, and other institutional investors.
The funding round followed an undisclosed pre-Series A funding round that the company secured in September 2015.
In a press statement, eFishery also said that it was the “biggest recorded funding round received by any agritech and Internet of Things (IoT) startup in Indonesia.”
“We believe that each investor will bring unique value, network, and learning for us. Aqua-spark, for instance, is one of the few aquaculture VCs with a deep understanding about this sector, as well as an established global portfolio across the value chain. Wavemaker Partners, 500 Startups, and Maloekoe Ventures have also successfully helped some of the biggest startups in the region to grow. Unreasonable Capital has strong experience supporting startups in emerging markets that develop complex technology and operations for people in the rural areas, and our other investors including Triputra Group are also bringing in their in-depth knowledge in manufacturing, agriculture, banking, and the logistics sectors,” explained eFishery Co-Founder and CEO Gibran Huzaifah.
“Ultimately, with this new round of investment, we want to further scale and refine our operating model. We aim to be a platform that connects the entire ecosystem in fish and shrimp farming, creating a more accountable and profitable industry across the region,” he added.
Launched in 2013 by co-founders Huzaifah and Chrisna Aditya, the startup provides IoT solutions and data platform for fish and shrimp farming business.
Its solutions aim to solve the problem of overfeeding, which directly affects productivity, by helping farmers monitor and schedule feeding times.
“Our data-driven technology enables last-mile data gathering on fish production and fish behaviour from all across the country. We realised that this data can be leveraged to solve some of the biggest issues in the sector: including risk management, supply inefficiency, lack of financing, and market access,” Huzaifah said.
“So far, we’ve been working on pilots with financial institutions to offer financing and partnering with some restaurant chains to get a better prices for the farmers. Hopefully, we can scale these new services and offer more value through our tech and platform,” he continued.
The startup’s service is already used in 16 provinces and 67 regencies or cities in Indonesia, particularly in Java, Bali, Lampung, Bengkulu, West Nusa Tenggara, and South Borneo.
eFishery has also begun international expansion by running pilot projects in Bangladesh, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Within the next year, the startup aims to expand its presence to other parts of Sumatra, Borneo, and Celebes.
“In the past two years, we have grown more than 261 times in revenue, and have persistently managed to pull in remarkable profit to date,” Huzaifah said.
