EFishery could be Indonesia’s next unicorn

Indonesia-based eFishery’s revenue has grown by over US$100 million in 2021, Paul Santos, managing partner at Wavemaker Partners told Tech in Asia. The early-stage VC firm is one of the larger investors in the aquatech startup. Temasek, SoftBank, and Sequoia Capital India also back the Indonesian firm.

Revenue has grown over 10x growth from 2019, when eFishery’s topline stood at US$10.1 million, according to the company’s filings. It hasn’t disclosed its financials for 2020 yet.

Gibran Huzaifah, CEO and Co-founder of eFishery / Photo credit: eFishery

These numbers put eFishery within striking distance of US$1 billion in valuation, our analysis shows.

The company has seen large jumps in revenue before. In 2019, the startup’s revenue surge 55x to US$10.1 million from US$185,400 a year earlier.

This boost in revenue came as it has scaled its network of farmers by 10x since 2020. The number of farmers in its ecosystem has skyrocketed 1,248% over the last year. EFishery currently supports around 150,000 ponds and has 30,000 fish farmers on its platform in Indonesia.

It has three main revenue sources: its feeder device, which farmers can rent for 5,000 rupiah (about US$0.35) a day; eFishery Mall, a marketplace for selling fish and shrimp feed; and eFishery Fresh, which sells fresh fish and shrimp to B2B customers such as restaurants, export buyers, and wholesale traders.

EFishery didn’t respond to queries from Tech in Asia regarding its financials.

Founded in 2013 in the city of Bandung, the startup entered the market with an IoT device called eFishery Feeder, which supports automated feeding in fish and shrimp farms. It also allowed farmers to monitor and schedule feeding via a smartphone app. The device also collects data on farm production patterns and fish behavior.

Reeling in the revenue

Santos attributes eFishery’s growth to its range of products and services that helped protect or grow fisheries businesses even through Covid-19. Santos says these tools assisted farmers by “selling them cheaper feed, giving them access to loans, and helping them sell their harvest.”

He further adds that the company has been profitable for the past few years. “It has a solid business model that delivers healthy unit economics and positive cash flows.”

In January, eFishery told Tech in Asia it has been profitable at an operating level since 2020. However, this profitability did not come at the expense of topline growth, it points out.

See also: Exclusive: Indonesia’s eFishery nets $90m series C from Temasek, SoftBank, Sequoia