Impactful entrepreneurship

• What do fintech platform Stockbit and aquaculture company eFishery have in common? They are the brainchild of entrepreneurs driven by social impact.
• 500 Global invests in companies that support financial inclusivity and food security, and we’re proud to be early backers of their impactful endeavors!
• Co-founders Wellson Lo and Johny Susanto met as students, started Stockbit in 2012 as a social analytics platform, which has since evolved into one of Indonesia’s three largest stock brokerages by number of investors.
• It all started with the simple aim of democratizing capital market data in Indonesia, where investing literacy is low.
• In their sixth year, the team expanded into wealth management with Bibit, a robo-adviser app that helps people build a personalized investment portfolio. Half of the mutual fund transactions in the country are currently done on Bibit.
• Investing on both Stockbit and Bibit starts from 10,000 rupiah (~US$0.63), and the two platforms have more than 5 million users combined.
• “Stockbit was built as a social forum to meet like-minded people to discuss, exchange ideas about investment, stock picking and other economic issues that affect investment. It helps the masses trade smarter to build wealth,” Wellson shares.
• The idea for eFishery also began with a college student. Who better to revolutionize the fish farming industry than Gibran Huzaifah, a biology major and catfish farmer.
• Pondering upon the innovations of emerging tech companies, he realized that the solutions tend to serve those living in cities, while rural areas go neglected. “Important sectors such as agriculture and aquaculture barely saw digital innovations. I told myself that problems in these sectors need solutions,” he shares.
• Founder & CEO Gibran went on to establish eFishery in 2013 to tackle the low margins plaguing the industry. He developed automated feeders to address inefficient, manual feeding techniques used at farms that are eating into the farmers’ profit margins.
• The automated feeders detect the movements of the fish and shrimp in the pond and dispense the right amount of feed, helping farmers save up to 28% on feeding costs.
• Today, eFishery is the world’s first aquaculture unicorn, reaching 1 million ponds. The team has also expanded their offerings, including financing fish feed purchase, and buying fish and shrimp from farms for export to the U.S. and China. The team is looking to bring their tech to more farmers in Asia and the Middle East. 
• Get the full story on The Straits Times.