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DBS Indonesia grants aquaculture start-up eFishery Rp 500 billion loan
Bank DBS Indonesia issued a short-term loan worth Rp 500 billion to aquaculture start-up eFishery, as announced in a signing ceremony held on Friday.
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By the age of 29, Gibran Huzaifah has successfully brought about a sea change in the country’s aquaculture industry with his smart fish feeder, eFishery. (JP/Yuliasri Perdani)
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ank DBS Indonesia issued a short-term loan worth Rp 500 billion (US$32.7 million) to aquaculture start-up eFishery, as announced in a signing ceremony held on Friday.
“We are happy to give a capital loan for eFishery who is very visionary in using technology to modernize the aquaculture sector of fish and shrimps,” said Bank DBS Indonesia director of institutional banking-group Kunardy Lie in a statement.
Focusing on cultivation of fish and shrimps with technology since its founding in 2013, eFishery CEO Gibran Huzaifah said he is grateful for this loan, thanks to tech-industry development, remembering how borrowing money from the bank for this kind of business used to be impossible.
“Back to our third year, our business nearly died because no bank was willing to give a loan for even a mere Rp 50 million. However, now DBS has entrusted us with a loan of Rp 500 billion,” Gibran said.
Nonetheless, this bank loan funding option can be viewed as anti-mainstream, considering how most start-ups receive their capital injection from venture capitalists.
“Why did we choose bank loans instead of funding from venture capital? Because it’s cheaper. […] We have to pay a huge amount for VC later on in the form of share-owning. When you do the calculations, a bank loan is much cheaper,” said Gibran.
“Lending from banks is how big corporations operate and that allows them to be big,” he added.
eFishery currently controls the ecosystem of about 80,000 fish and shrimp farmers with 280,000 ponds under their belt. Gibran said the company could grow that big by virtue of how untapped the sector is.
“[Aquaculture] is not a very competitive sector. We don’t have to grapple for market share while the market [potential] is massive. But we have only touched 4 percent of farmers,” said Gibran, pointing out how unexplored the aquaculture market is.
Data from the Food and Agriculture Organization showed that aquaculture has a compound annual growth rate of 18.7 percent, making it one of the sectors with the most rapid growth within the past 40 years.
“We hope this loan can accelerate the eFishery business expansion and improve the quality of fish and shrimp farmers, as well as creating sustainable food security,” said Kunardy.
“Bank DBS Indonesia’s commitment to partner with eFishery is one of our focuses to stimulate growth in the Indonesian digital economy industry as well as a display of our seriousness in governing businesses in accordance with environmental, social and governance [principles],” he added.
