Internet of Things (IoT)-based startup eFishery closed an undisclosed Pre-Series A funding from Holland-based Aqua-Spark and Ideosource. The funding will go to team expansion, enhance software platform, and national-scale distribution.
We know eFishery as a national and global competition-winner automatic fish feeder. In specific, eFishery aims to facilitate fish and shrimp farmers, as feeding usually covers 50 to 80 percent of their total farming cost.
“The problem we’re trying to solve is the inefficiency appears in fish feeding process. I myself found similiar problem when being a farmer. Workers feed fish inefficiently, and farmers didn’t have the technology to control the feeding activity. We create this product to make fish and shrimp farming more efficient, convenient, and accountable,” eFishery’s Co-Founder and CEO Gibran Chuzaefah Amsi El Farizy stated in his release.
eFishery’s business model is selling the automatic feeder to farmers and distributors. Further, they monetize from the monthly subscription fee they collect from lending their software to monitor and analyze the feeding performance real-time through smartphone or tablet. They claim that in average, their tech could optimize the feeding process up to 21 percent.
With the potential value of global aquaculture market reaching $5.4 billion (around Rp 76 trillion), eFishery now aims for partnership with 17 thousand fish and shrimp farms, including those in Thailand, Singapore, India, China, Brazil, and several African countries.
This potential is what draws Holland-based Aqua-Spark aboard. Aqua-Spark’s Partner Amy Novogratz stated, “We are very eager to solve the global fish feeding issue with eFishery,”
“Indonesia has around 3,3 million fish ponds and 2,7 fish farms. This solution may be a big hit in various global industries with similiar condition. eFishery has the potential to create a new standard for global aquaculture business and create the industry more transparent, data-based, and accountable, every factor that makes the business far more attractive for investors,” Novogratz continued.
Aqua-Spark’s global experience in aquaculture industry is what eFishery needs to build a better foundation for further international expansion.
At the moment, eFishery has been available in the Island of Java, Bali, and Sumatra. With the latest funding, eFishery expects to reach more distributors, find more local partners, and multiple its market share in Indonesia.
eFishery will also develop a business model which enables farmers to rent the product on monthly basis or even pay after the harvesting season ends. Moreover, they will also use the money to recruit talents in technology and aquaculture to create better software platform that has more features and accommodates more fish types.
“eFishery is a perfect example of real problem solver that deals with real-life problems in highly promising market,” Ideosource’s VP of Business Development Andrias Ekoyuono concluded.
Translated by Rifki Aria Nugraha