A Fish Feeder Distributor Worth $1.4B?!

Read time: 3 minutes

Good morning! It's Friday, August 11th - Today we are taking a look at eFishery, an Indonesian company that’s revolutionized fish farming and generates $200M+ in annual revenue!

THE FEATURE

A Fish Feeder Distributor Worth $1.4B?!

Gibran Huzaifah took a common path to escape the slums of Jakarta, becoming a catfish farmer along with the other 3.7M Indonesian farmers in the aquaculture sector.

However, Huzaifah immediately saw systemic problems in the Indonesian catfish farming industry and founded eFishery to provide solutions for farmers.

Last month, eFishery netted $200M in a Series D funding round, valuing the company at $1.4B!

What’s eFishery?

Huzaifah attended the Bandung Institute of Technology to earn a biology degree while working side jobs like tutoring and nightshifts at a local grocery store.

While attending an aquaculture class, he learned that catfish is one of the most consumed freshwater fish among Western nations and that the market was expected to grow substantially over the next 10 years. So, he started his own fish pond thinking that he’d at least be able to feed himself if he couldn’t turn a profit.

By the time Huzaifah graduated, he had 70 catfish ponds and possessed an in-depth knowledge of the industry– including its biggest expense: feed costs. Feeding costs make up 70% to 90% of total catfish breeding costs.

To solve this issue, Huzaifah created an automatic fish feeder in his friend’s garage and began using it on his own farms. Locals were initially hesitant to use the product, but today eFishery serves 70,000 fish and shrimp farmers across 280 cities in Indonesia.

Last year, eFishery generated a stunning $266M in revenue from a business model that distributes feeding technology and facilitates nearly every aspect of fish trading for Indonesian farmers:

• eFisheryFeeder: Farmers pay a $10 subscription fee for catfish or shrimp automated feeders. These feeders can track and analyze movement within the pond to estimate hunger levels and dispense food. In doing so, it speeds up the harvest cycle by up to 70 days. Farmers can also use their smartphones to manually initiate feed cycles.

• eFisheryFeed: This is Huzaifah’s feed marketplace that sells fish feed at 5% below the average cost. eFisheryFeed is the largest feed distributor in Indonesia and takes a cut from manufacturers that sell on their platform.

• eFisheryFresh: Farmers can sell fish directly to restaurants, hotels, and other culinary businesses through eFishery’s B2B marketplace platform. eFishery takes a cut from those transactions.

• eFishery Loans: Indonesian fish farmers struggle to obtain loans from conventional institutions, so eFishery uses peer-to-peer fintech lending platforms to let farmers purchase feed and feeders through a line of credit.

How He Won: Winning Over the Locals

Selling Indonesian fish farmers on an automated feeder was not easy, considering that these farmers had been using the same traditional methods for hundreds of years.

To help these farmers understand the usefulness of modern technology for farming and selling fish, Huzaifah hosted Internet 101 courses where he taught locals how to create an email, use search platforms, and access digital marketplaces.

Shortly after one of these sessions, Huzaifah won over his first farmer who deployed the automated feeder across his 1,000 ponds. This led to a snowball effect with thousands of farmers reaching out to Huzaifah for his feeders.

Key Observations

The most successful businesses solve a problem that consumers will pay them to solve– the bigger the problem the bigger the payout.

With this in mind, eFishery’s massive success is no surprise at all. Huzaifah developed a product that significantly lowered the greatest operational cost for Indonesian farmers and created a platform so they could easily bring their product to market.

In doing so, Huzaifah greatly increased the economic livelihood of Indonesian fish farmers and created a billion-dollar business.

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