© Jala Tech
“We are delighted to receive this new funding, which will be instrumental in helping us achieve our goals of developing new ways to improve the industry and its impact on our society," said Liris Maduningtyas, co-founder and CEO of Jala, in a press release.
The funding was led by the Althelia Sustainable Ocean Fund, advised by Mirova Natural Capital, an affiliate of Mirova. Other participants in the round include the Meloy Fund, an American environmental conservation group; and Real Tech Fund, Japan’s leading deep-tech-focused venture capital fund.
Commenting on the new investment, Lisa Hubert, investment manager at Althelia Sustainable Ocean Fund, said: “We are pleased to announce this important investment to contribute to make more sustainable an industry which plays such a significant role in South East Asia. Poor practices have been common in this area and with this investment in Jala we are backing a business which can make a quantifiable difference to the farmers, the value chain players and the end consumer.”
Jala develops and provides hardware and software that accurately measure the water quality of shrimp ponds and a platform to visualise and manage the acquired technical and financial data, allowing aquaculture producers to monitor pond conditions and make optimal farm management decisions. The platform is equipped with functions such as shrimp growth information, harvest prediction, financial management and disease alerts. The recommendations provided are generated through an artificial intelligence model developed by Jala.
Jala also operates a marketplace that directly connects shrimp farmers and processing companies which allow the farmers to become more competitive in the supply chain. Another advantage of the marketplace is that it allows for product traceability, which is becoming increasingly important for today’s consumers – from individuals to large retail and wholesale groups.
Jala supports the optimisation of aquaculture pond operations throughout the whole of Southeast Asia. As of 2021, the platform is being used by more than 6,700 farms, achieving improvements in productivity and feed conversion ratios, and facilitating the monthly trade of 200 tonnes of shrimp .
Indonesia is one of the top five shrimp producers in the world – along with China, Ecuador, India and Vietnam. However, many issues related to shrimp aquaculture remain unresolved, such as pollution caused by the release of farm effluents in rivers and the ocean, disease outbreaks and mortality, inefficient value chains, low value addition for the farmers and limited product traceability. transparency. Jala aims to help solve some of these issues to make the shrimp value chain a more sustainable, transparent, efficient and fair.
In the future, Jala plans to develop or collaborate on auto-feeders, oxygenators, and environmentally friendly recirculating aquaculture systems. The company will also explore how their ecosystem can contribute to the dissemination of sustainable certification standards for shrimp aquaculture.
* Jala is part of Hatch's investment portfolio, but The Fish Site retains editorial independence.
