JAKARTA: Homegrown aquaculture unicorn eFishery has laid off an undisclosed portion of its workforce and announced a shift in focus, a move analysts say is the result of a lack of domestic demand for fisheries products.

Nailul Huda, director for digital economy at the Centre of Economic and Law Studies told The Jakarta Post on Monday that the company might have found that the local market lacked sufficient appetite for its products. The firm was also facing tight funding.

“Indeed, it seems the local market is not absorbing as much as we thought. That’s why they might try not just to sell domestically but to countries like China, Thailand and others, as they also need food sub-bases from Indonesia,” Nailul said.

M. Chairil, vice-president of public affairs at eFishery, confirmed in a statement last Saturday that the company had laid off some of its workers, a decision he said the company had considered carefully.

The company did not disclose the number of people impacted by the layoffs, claiming that it was still in the process of calculating the figure. It vowed to assist the laid off employees, including by helping them find new jobs.

The firm said the move was part of a shift in strategy that also included plans to pursue growth through overseas markets. The unicorn pledged to focus on developing both upstream and downstream parts of its business this year, including product penetration and digitalization.

In October 2023, eFishery established a new office in Kakinanda, India, a city that accounts for some 85% of the country’s fish production.

Redseer South-East Asia partner Roshan Raj said eFishery might shift focus to foreign markets, partly because of the lack of local players in Indonesia, a choice he said could give the company a good runway for growth.

“The fishery market is large and unorganised in Indonesia,” he told the Post on Monday.

In May of last year, eFishery officially earned the title of unicorn, a term for start-ups with a valuation of US$1bil or more. It was the first start-up in the global aquaculture industry to cross that threshold.

At the time, it had valuation of some US$1.3bil. It raised another US$200mil in a Series D funding round the following July.

After the funding round, eFishery said it aimed to target over one million aquaculture ponds in Indonesia by 2025 and to export fully traceable antibiotic-free shrimp products overseas.

Founded in 2013, eFishery seeks to provide a marketplace for fish and shrimp feed and financing for producers.

The company also serves as a platform for business-to-business sales of fresh fish and shrimp products.

 - ANN