Introduction
Founded in 2021 by Guntur Mallarangeng, Aris Noerhadi, Alexander Farthing, and Bobby Indra Gunawan Wibisono, DELOS aims to jumpstart what it calls the “Blue Revolution”. The vision is to help progress Indonesia into an international aquaculture-based seafood production powerhouse within the next decade. The revolution will be a radical shift to drive the growth and modernization of the ~$2.5 billion Indonesian aquaculture industry and further its integration into the global seafood supply chain.
Since its March 2022 seed round, DELOS has successfully launched its farming-as-a-service product, AquaHero, a full-stack farm productivity system that combines scientific expertise, technology, and operational excellence to boost farm yields and maintain profitability.
The AquaHero product utilizes top-class data collection methods and a cutting-edge biological model to predict and mitigate harvest risk, a model that will be trained on hundreds of shrimp ponds within the DELOS ecosystem across Indonesia. That, combined with the necessary technology stack and operational expertise, has served to increase farm productivity for the Indonesian aquaculture industry.
DELOS has also launched AquaLink, a harvesting and logistics platform that allows it to capture and provide sustainable and traceable seafood supply downstream in the value chain. The company is currently responsible for producing and distributing thousands of tons of shrimp annually, and has taken steps to integrate its supply into the $300 billion global seafood market.
“The Indonesian aquaculture sector has been in sore need of an upgrade for the past few decades. An outsized portion of farming decisions are still being made by gut-feel and appeals to tradition, instead of being driven by data and empirical farming practices. Indonesia’s natural advantage as the world’s biggest tropical maritime country gives it all the puzzle pieces it needs to be the world’s biggest seafood producer. Improving our aquaculture industry’s adoption of best-in-class technologies and practices would help us realize its true potential. This can be a highly strategic industry for Indonesia,” says CEO, Guntur Mallarangeng.
With this funding, DELOS will double down its focus on production. The company will use its funding to continue its development of AquaHero through research and development of features to decrease production costs, which entails better disease monitoring, water quality management, feed conversion ratios, and yields.
In order to streamline global integration, the company aims to ensure the traceability and sustainability of its supply chain.The company has, thereby, embedded sustainable practices into its operations, and will allow stakeholders visibility into its supply chain through its AquaHero and AquaLink platforms.
“DELOS advances the use of data science and technology in the shrimp farming industry in Indonesia. DELOS vastly improves productivity of farms with reduced input costs, while enabling traceability and sustainability in the farming practices. We are pleased to partner with the DELOS team in transforming the strategically-important aquaculture industry - not just in Indonesia, but across Southeast Asia. This is a potentially highly impactful investment for us,” said Kuo-Yi Lim, Monk’s Hill Ventures Co-founder and Managing Partner.