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

INDONESIA-BASED agritech startup eFishery closed a US$90 million Series C round co-led by Temasek, SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Sequoia Capital India, it announced in a press statement on Tuesday (Jan 11).

Existing investors also participated in the round. They include private equity firm Northstar Group, GoTo-backed Go-Ventures, aquaculture investment fund Aqua-Spark and deep tech venture capital Wavemaker Partners.

eFishery will use the fresh funds to strengthen its digital products and expand regionally, with its eye on the top 10 countries in aquaculture including India and China. It also aims to recruit a thousand new hires this year, with a focus on engineering and product development, said eFishery's co-founder and chief executive officer Gibran Huzaifah.

Launched in 2013 and based in Bandung, eFishery offers an end-to-end platform providing fish and shrimp farmers with access to technology, feed, financing and markets. The company has deployed thousands of smart feeders for over 30,000 farmers across 24 provinces in Indonesia, it said.

Its upstream technology, eFeeder, optimises yield days and increases farmers' production capacity by up to 26 per cent and improves feed efficiency by up to 30 per cent through reducing time and labour costs, while its downstream technology, eFresh, connects farmers with buyers, increasing farmers' income by up to 45 per cent, said Huzaifah.

The startup's latest products include online platforms eFarm, which provides shrimp farmers with comprehensive information about their farming operations, and eFisheryKu, where fish farmers can purchase their farming supplies, such as feed, at competitive prices.

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Fish farmers can apply for an installment loan plan to purchase fish farming needs via a service on eFisheryKu which connects farmers directly to financial institutions. According to eFishery, over 7,000 farmers have used this service, with over US$28 million in total approved loans.

"With US$20 billion in market size, and a fragmented and complex supply chain, aquaculture is one of the largest and most attractive opportunities in Indonesia," said Sequoia India's vice-president Aakash Kapoor.