Aruna reels in another US$30m in funding round led by Vertex

INDONESIA-BASED fishery and marine platform Aruna has raised US$30 million in a follow-on Series A round led by venture capital (VC) firm Vertex Ventures South-east Asia and India, bringing its total Series A funds to US$65 million.

Existing investors that joined this round include VC firms Prosus Ventures, AC Ventures, East Ventures Growth Fund, Indogen Capital, SMDV and SIG Venture Capital, said the aquaculture startup in a statement on Thursday (Jan 27).

Aruna is an end-to-end supply chain aggregator that helps over 26,000 Indonesian fisherfolk sell to enterprise-scale buyers across 8 countries in South-east Asia, East Asia, North America and the Middle East.

In 2021, Aruna sold 44 million kg of seafood to these countries, developed 100 local fishermen communities and created 5,000 job opportunities in the rural areas of Indonesia to support its operations.

The newly injected funds will be used to expand Aruna's global market share, tap into new local geographies, and hire more talent, it said.

Investments in Indonesia's marine and fisheries sector grew in 2021 to an estimated 6.02 trillion rupiah (S$565.7 million) in December, up from 4.39 trillion rupiah in September.

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The sector saw investors from Singapore and China.

Aquaculture captured the largest portion of investments (30 per cent), followed by fish processing (27 per cent), fish catching and trading, according to Indonesia's ministry of marine affairs and fisheries.

Aruna has grown 400 times from 2017 to 2021 and the existing demand exceeds its platform's current supply by over 5 times, it said.

The company was founded in 2016 by 3 graduates of Telkom University Bandung who wanted to use technology to create a fair-trade ecosystem for fish and marine products.

Farid Naufal Aslam, co-founder and chief executive officer of Aruna, said: "We have a vision of making Indonesia the centre of the world's maritime economy and we hope to achieve this by revolutionising the marine and fisheries industry chain, encouraging financial inclusion and promoting sustainable fishing industry practices."

READ MORE:

• Indonesia's eFishery raises US$90m in Series C round co-led by Temasek

• Aruna raises US$5.5m from East Ventures, AC Ventures and Sinar Mas' SMDV