This startup is building smartphone-powered ‘fishtech’ for Indonesia’s commercial aqualife

Techies in Jakarta often don’t know what to make of eFishery. The Bandung-based startup for commercial aqualife has a concept that is uncommon to say the least. The company doesn’t fall into the ordinary categories Tech in Asia usually sees (edtech, fintech, ecommerce, etc.). Instead, this offbeat startup might as well just coin its own word: “fishtech.”

eFishery is a smart feeding system for commercial aquaculture that can feed fish automatically, sense the fish’s appetite. The company has built its own hardware and software, including sensors to monitor the water motion of a pond. If sensors detect certain motions, the feeders can determine that fish are agitated and hungry, and then release food. The app lets farmers see when this is happening in real-time on their phone, and further control the system should they feel the need.

Earlier this month, eFishery took first place in two of Jakarta’s startup pitching contests. The first was Get in the Ring, and the second was Indonesia’s Seedstars World. eFishery will go on to the international Seedstars final in Geneva for a chance to win equity investment of US$500,000.

eFishery’s automated smart feeding system for commercial aqualife.

See: Switzerland-based Seedstars World Competition Enters Asia

Fishing for ideas

“It all started back when I was a fish farmer,” says Gibran Chuzaefah Amsi El Farizy, eFishery’s 24-year-old founder and CEO. El Farizy remembers chatting with another commercial fish baron and learning that he was interested in tech solutions to more efficiently feed his stock. He explains, “Feeding is the biggest cost in the business but it is done inefficiently, by unskilled labor with no control or supervision. I just came up with the idea and asked him whether he’d be willing to buy it or not […] he said yes. So I decided there was a demand.”

El Farizy runs his company out of Bandung, a suburban city in West Java just outside Jakarta. He earned a Bachelor’s degree from the Bandung Institute of Technology before starting eFishery in November 2013. His experience in both tech and aquaculture allows him to be that natural pioneer of “fishtech” in Indonesia.

El Farizy claims his target market is interesting because few other players have thought to penetrate it. “Aquaculture is already a billion dollar industry, rapidly growing, but it has a lack of innovation. I saw it as a huge opportunity for a new technology business,” he explains.

A secret fish market

El Farizy can’t seem to overstate the opportunity for eFishery. According to him, the startup’s only competitors are companies from Thailand and Taiwan. But the difference between them and eFishery is that they only make automatic feeders that run on timers.

El Farizy claims eFishery outdoes the competition as his feeders are “smart,” and his user interface is in Bahasa Indonesia. He says, “We can support after-sales service as we are a local product. We are way more efficient.”

See: Top 7 startups at Indonesia’s GIST Startup Boot Camp

eFishery is a fully-bootstrapped operation. Since February, El Farizy claims to have already sold 140 of his units at US$975 a piece to big aquaculture companies in Indonesia. According to him, eFishery has already generated more than Rp1 billion (US$100,000) in revenue this year alone. He also claims to have two “big fish” companies in eFishery’s pipeline that own 10,000 and 14,000 aquaculture farms respectively. El Farizy estimates that there are 1.6 million aquaculture businesses in Indonesia that represent potential customers for eFishery.

The only fish in the sea