One step at a time

• 500-backed eFishery has been busy in India, where the aquaculture industry is worth US$15B. They launched ahead of schedule and have secured contracts with farmers that work on over 1,000 acres of ponds!
• The team has also partnered with local feed suppliers to offer their products on eFishery’s marketplace, which has generated more than 3,000 metric tons of feed in sales volume within 9 months.
• In a country where farmers face challenges such as reaching customers, dealing with unpredictable prices, and getting paid on time by suppliers, eFishery hopes their Indonesia playbook – which includes automated fish feeding systems, a feed marketplace, and B2B fish sales – will also benefit farmers in India.
• eFishery plans to expand to five additional Indian states by the end of 2024. Beyond that, the team is exploring opportunities in Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines, as well as Latin America.
• Gibran believes that expanding to one country at a time makes more sense for eFishery. “If we go to five countries at once, it will make us unfocused, and the impact will be non-existent,” he shared.
• The company’s goal in their home country of Indonesia, where they currently work with 200,000 fish farmers, is to reach 1 million in the next three years. This is only 7-8% of the local market, so Co-founder & CEO Gibran Huzaifah has set an ambitious target of triple-digit growth.
• eFishery is already exporting to the U.S., and is targeting China, Europe, and the Middle East. To pursue their next phase of growth, the team is now prioritizing direct-to-consumer seafood products after years of focusing solely on boosting farmer productivity.
• Gibran added that they will also launch their own line of branded seafood products in Indonesia by the first half of 2024.
• “eFishery’s competitor isn’t the next aquaculture company. Its competitor is our antiquated global food supply chain.” – Khailee Ng, Managing Partner, 500 Global
• Get the full story on Tech in Asia.