EFishery takes on global aquaculture in a balancing act

In 2023, Indonesian aquaculture startup eFishery was arguably an outlier in the tech winter. It didn’t announce any layoffs and even opened a larger office in Bandung.

The company recently launched its commercial operations in India ahead of schedule, setting its sights on the South Asian country’s US$15 billion aquaculture industry.

At a time when many tech startups have to cut costs and withdraw from markets, eFishery can afford to go in the opposite direction.

Image credit: Timmy Loen

In July, the startup secured US$200 million in series D funding, boosting its valuation to US$1.4 billion. It was also crowned as the world’s first-ever aquaculture unicorn.

“We raised funding not because our runway is running out but to sustain our business while launching our plans,” CEO and co-founder Gibran Huzaifah tells Tech in Asia in an interview.

Indeed, these plans include aggressive expansion into new markets across Asia and Latin America in 2024, despite the company claiming to hold only a 7% to 8% market penetration in Indonesia. Huzaifah has also set ambitious goals, even targeting triple-digit growth this year.

This raises the questions: Can eFishery effectively scale its model outside of Indonesia? And can expansion unlock its growth target?

Why India?

Unlike Indonesia where farmers are more scattered, India has a more concentrated farmer population. This has led eFishery to initially focus only on Andhra Pradesh, a state that produces 35% of the country’s aquaculture output.

Most of India’s farmers also operate on a small- and medium-scale basis, notes Neil Wendover, eFishery’s international expansion lead. These farmers face challenges such as reaching customers, dealing with unpredictable prices, and getting paid on time by suppliers.

The company is hoping its Indonesian playbook – which includes automatic fish feeding systems, a feed marketplace, and B2B fish sales – will also work in India. It plans to expand to five additional Indian states by the end of 2024.

eFishery CEO and co-founder Gibran Huzaifah/ Photo credit: eFishery

For its pilot program in the country, the startup says it has secured contracts with farmers that work on over 1,000 acres of ponds. The firm has also partnered with local feed suppliers to offer their products on its marketplace, which has generated more than 3,000 metric tons of feed in sales volume within nine months, the company says.

Growing the pie

Pressure to grow?