Indonesian Gibran Huzaifah who grew up in poverty builds US$1.4 billion fish start-up
- Aquaculture firm eFishery’s value has hit US$1.4 billion, more than tripling its previous value, with further expansion planned at home and abroad, including India
- 33-year-old CEO Huzaifah, a biology major, grew up near slums in Jakarta where he often slept rough and once did not eat for three days
EFishery’s value hit US$1.4 billion after a funding round led by Abu Dhabi’s 42XFund, more than tripling its previous value of US$410 million in 2022, according to Chief Executive Officer Gibran Huzaifah.
Slowing economies, rising interest rates and higher levels of inflation have prompted venture investors globally to pull back.
EFishery, which says on its website that “the future is aquaculture”, plans to use the money to expand in Indonesia and India before pursuing an initial public offering in the US or Indonesia in two years, the CEO said.
“We’d like to be a global leader over the next five years and do an IPO at some point”, he said. “The earliest would be in 2025.”
Huzaifah, 33, grew up near slums in eastern Jakarta, the son of a construction site foreman and a homemaker.
His mother, who never finished high school, urged him to study. And he excelled academically, eventually enrolling in Bandung Institute of Technology, a local elite university known for producing engineers.
But as he entered the university, his family’s financial situation took a turn for worse after his father lost his job.
Without money from home or acquaintances in a new city, he had to find a shelter to sleep every night. It was sometimes the campus, sometimes a mosque, he said. Once, he did not eat for three days.
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Then by chance, Huzaifah, a biology major, attended a class on aquaculture. He became fascinated by the professor’s lectures on catfish breeding.
Convinced that aquaculture was the future of food – and his path to escape destitution – he immediately rented a pond to farm catfish. Three years later, in 2012, he was operating 76 ponds.
During that time, he experienced first-hand the industry’s challenges, such as minuscule profit margins caused by substantial feeding costs and low fish prices demanded by middlemen buying his catch.
With help from a friend with a technology background, he built a prototype automatic feeder using Internet-of-Things technology to eliminate the problem of over- or underfeeding fish.
Then in 2013, he launched eFishery. His approach was two-pronged: do something you understand and do not follow the crowd.
The company’s business has since evolved to include a marketplace for fish and shrimp farmers and buyers. It also works with financial institutions to provide financing to farmers.
After the latest funding round – joined by state pension fund Kumpulan Wang Persaraan, ResponsAbility Investments AG and 500 Global, along with existing backers – Huzaifah and his co-founder’s stake are worth more than US$100 million each.
Huzaifah said his life has not changed much. Still, “it feels good because I don’t need to worry about the financial troubles I had growing up”, he said.
