Eight Years Story of eFishery Pioneer of Aquaculture Startups in Indonesia

eFishery‘s confidence in being able to cover Series C funding is an interesting story because it is claimed to be the largest funding that has been obtained by aquaculture startups in the world.

There were three names of new investors who led the round, namely Temasek, SoftBank, and Sequoia Capital India. The entry of global investors into aquaculture startups is a new thing, from those who are usually better known as investing in consumer-based businesses, they are starting to be interested in the potential of businesses that are serious about eFishery.

eFishery’s journey itself to get to this point is not as easy as turning the palm of the hand. In terms of the industry itself, not only in Indonesia, even on a global scale, there is no benchmark that eFishery can use to find its business model. As a result, in these eight years, the company has done a lot of trial and error to make its own playbook.

On the occasion, the Commissioner of eFishery Aldi Haryopratomo and Managing Director of Northstar Group Sidharta Oetama were also present. 

The main product of eFishery is the eFishery Smart Autofeeder which is a smart automatic fish feeding machine that is set up using a smartphone. This tool feeds automatically, logs feed data, and connects to the internet.

Platforms Used by eFishery

eFarm is a platform that provides complete and easy-to-understand information about shrimp adding operations. Meanwhile, eFisheryKu is an integrated platform that allows fish farmers to buy various aquaculture needs, such as fish feed, at competitive prices.

This Smart Autofeeder is available in subscription form. The price starts from Rp. 5 thousand per day to Rp. 150 thousand a month, while fish farming is set at a maximum of Rp. 350 thousand a month. “This all includes service and installation fees, farmers can unsubscribe at any time.”

Of all the products above, one of the interesting points that Aldi emphasized is about mechanization. Changing the way fish cultivators work from being completely manual to using modern tools, to creating efficiencies that have an impact on many things.

“From this mechanization, a lot of data can be utilized and become the foundation for the next eFishery products. Because previously there was no size for feeding fish, so there is a standard,” said Aldi.

Sidharta added, apart from mechanization, from a humanistic perspective, this mechanization gives fish cultivators a sense of freedom to do other things outside of their main job.

Enter The Inflection Point Stage

Gibran continued, the Smart Autofeeder product is eFishery’s entry point in reaching new farmers, as well as being a bridge to enter other eFishery products. For this reason, the more farmers who use it, the greater the impact created, from production efficiency to a more affordable selling price of fish.

In order to achieve this target, eFishery seeks to add new talents, especially in the field of engineering as the company’s main backbone. The proportion of engineering talent at eFishery is currently the second largest after the sales and expansion team.

The number of engineering teams will be doubled, considering that the company’s next focus is to prepare tech savvy cultivators to dive deeper into digital products. According to Gibran, at this point, companies must be more systematic in managing their employees and consumers on a digital basis to be more efficient.

It is said that currently eFishery, through technology downstream of eFeeder, is able to speed up the harvest cycle and increase production capacity by up to 26%. Meanwhile, through eFresh, it reduces operational costs and increases farmers’ income by up to 45%.

The purchase price of feed provided by the company is also claimed to be 3%-5% cheaper than buying it at distributor agents. As of now, thousands of smart feeders have been used and serve more than 30 thousand farmers.