JALA Tech Announces Funding Raise Of 85,7 Billion Rupiah

Startup developer of aquaculture technology tools JALA Tech announced the acquisition of funding worth $ 6 million or equivalent to 85,7 billion Rupiah. A number of venture capitalists who focus on impact investing from several countries involved in this round, including The Meloy Fund (managed by Deliberate Capital from the United States), Real Tech Fund (from Japan), and Mirova (from France).

Previously, JALA has also been supported by a number of investors, including Hatch Blue and 500 Startups since last 2019.

In official statement, Co-Founder & CEO of JALA Tech Liris Maduningtyas said, "We are delighted to receive this new funding, which will play an important role in helping us achieve our goal of developing new ways to improve the industry and its impact on society."

As is known, JALA develops technology in the form of hardware and software to help farmers increase their production. Some of these include water quality measurement tools, micro bubble generators, business recording applications to analysis. These devices can be connected and operated through applications with their Internet of Things (IoT) capabilities.

One of the target market JALA products are shrimp farmers. He said that Indonesia is one of the 5 largest shrimp producers in the world along with China, Ecuador, India and Vietnam. To date, many problems related to shrimp farming remain unresolved, such as pollution caused by the release of agricultural wastes in rivers and seas, disease outbreaks and mortality, inefficient value chains, low added value for farmers, and traceability of products that are poor. limited, and transparency.

"JALA aims to contribute in solving some of these problems to make the shrimp value chain more sustainable, transparent, efficient and fair," he said.

Launch regional expansion

Previously, in the middle of 2020, JALA had established its intention to enter the regional market. It started with opening a branch office in Thailand. Liris said that since 2019 the company has expanded its business to Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Ecuador. But that's still limited to a business agreement between the company and B2B and B2C clients in the country.

As of July 2020, the company said that users of the JALA solution have now reached more than 6 thousand farmers and more than 100 devices hardware IoT is used.

Of course, this achievement is a breath of fresh air for the local cultivation industry. With technology and digital-based innovations, it is hoped that the existing potential can be pushed more optimally. Apart from JALA, other startups have also introduced innovations in the aquaculture sector, one of which is eFishery with its flagship product, automatic fish feed. With good investor support, eFishery is now also into the funding business and online groceries with the hope of providing solutions from upstream to downstream.