Aqua-Spark launched in December 2013 with the mission of making fish farming sustainable through strategic investments in companies, technologies and practices that could transform this growing sector.
The first two investments reflect this mission:
- Calysta – a company that cultivates an efficient, methane-eating natural microbe that produces protein. This is a new and sustainable feed ingredient: a single cell protein that is a perfect replacement for fishmeal.
- Chicoa Fish Farm – a farm offering a vertically integrated solution to kick-start Mozambique’s freshwater aquaculture industry.
eFishery is a deliberate complement to Aqua-Spark’s first two investments. Across the industry, feed poses 50-80 per cent of fish farm operation costs. eFishery offers a transformative, affordable, tech-based solution for this challenge – in the form of an automatic, smart feeder that uses sensors to measure fish appetite and feed amounts.
Designed for both small and large-scale farmers, the system can sense appetite, automatically distribute feed, and give real-time reports of consumption via the Cloud. By tracking and optimizing feedings, overfeeding – which is one of the biggest causes of environmental damage – is avoided. The same goes for underfeeding, which is a factor in underweight and unhealthy fish.
The eFishery feeder has the potential to set a new standard for aquaculture and make the industry more transparent, data-driven, and accountable – all factors that will make businesses in this sector more investment-friendly. The collection of data will also be important for governments as they develop policies and guidelines for what is still an emerging industry.
“We are very excited to solve the global challenge of fish feeding with eFishery,” says Amy Novogratz, Partner at Aqua-spark.
“Indonesia has about 3.3 million fishponds and 2.7 million fish farms. When brought to scale, it could have a massive impact across a global industry plagued by this challenge. It has the potential to set a new standard for aquaculture and make the industry more transparent, data-driven, and accountable – all factors that will make businesses in this sector more investment-friendly.”
eFishery has won several awards for its technology – from across a range of sectors. Beyond aquaculture, they have been recognized as an innovative tech startup, one of which was the 2014 Get in the Ring Award in Rotterdam, Netherlands, where they prevailed against leading eCommerce and internet start-ups from all over the world.
“The problem that we are solving is the inefficiency of feeding in the fish farming business,” explains eFishery Co-Founder and CEO Gibran Chuzaefah Amsi El Farizy.
“I saw the problem when I was a fish farmer myself. Fish feeding is done inefficiently by laborers, and farmers don't have any technology to control the feeding yet. We built this product to make the fish and shrimp farming business more efficient, convenient, and accountable."
For more information about eFishery, please visit www.efishery.com
