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Aruna provides two services to help improve the livelihood of fishermen: an online marketplace for fishery products and a digital fish auction platform

Indonesian integrated fishery platform Aruna announced that it has raised an undisclosed seed funding from hardware and machinery distributor UMG Indonesia, DailySocial reported.

Apart from funding, UMG Indonesia is also set to help the Bandung-based startup in microfinancing, logistics, and procurement of cold storage facilities.

Aruna plans to use the funding to build its team, as well as to develop a B2B online trading platform and app for its fishermen-partners.

Having had partnered with fishermen groups and co-operations in West Java, Aceh, South Celebes, East Borneo, and other areas, the startup also plans to expand by getting more groups and co-operations on board.

Also Read: Here’s how Google plan to help Indonesia battle illegal fishing

Problem in the water

Aruna was founded to solve the issues faced by Indonesian fishery and maritime industry. The world’s largest archipelago has strong potential in the industry, with data from Worldfish Association and the Ministry of Maritime and Fishery revealing that fish trading value in Indonesia has reached US$5.3 billion.

The industry also has an annual growth rate of 8.91 per cent, the strongest of all sectors in the country.

However, a typical Indonesian fisherman make only about IDR1.1 million (US$82) per month, leading to a 50 per cent decline of the number of fishermen working in the country within the last decade.

They are also often being tricked by middlemen, leading them to sell fishes for less than it is actually worth.

To solve these issues, Aruna provides two solutions: Digital fish auction platform eTPI and B2B marketplace for seafood products PasarLaut.

eTPI contains features that support the business process typically happening in offline fish auction centres, from inventory to point-of-sales, while PasarLaut utilises data from eTPI to ensure fair pricing.

The startup’s revenue stream comes from the 10 per cent transaction fee while each buyer is allowed to purchase a minimum 100 kilogram of fish.

Aruna co-founder Farid Naufal Aslam explained in a separate interview that by Q4 2016, the platform has received inquiries to supply more than 3,500 tonnes of fish to businesses.

“But the capacity of our [partner] co-operations is only up to 100 tonnes per month. Hopefully, by having more partners on board, there will be an increase in transaction on our platform,” he said.

Also Read: Smart fish feeder eFishery enters Bangladesh and Thailand, secured 300+ users in Indonesia

Like other fishery-related startup in Indonesia, such as IWAK, Aruna’s journey began from the campus.

Co-founders Farid Naufal Aslam, Indraka Fadhlillah, and Utari Octavianty met when they were studying at Telkom University, Bandung.

The three friends submitted their idea to build an e-commerce platform to help fishermen to various startup competitions. Having had won several times, the co-founders then decided to actually start the business and expand its team.

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Image Credit: jjspring / 123RF Stock Photo

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