App can help shrimp sector boost income, says inventor
AQUACONNECT is currently focused on India’s US$7.1 billion aquaculture sector, which produces almost 700,000 tonnes of farmed shrimp annually, and has become the top global exporter in recent years.
The shrimp farming industry loses billions of dollars every year due to widespread disease and inferior feed conversion.
Aquaconnect’s app, FarmMOJO, provides an AI (artificial intelligence) based advisory service to farmers to predict diseases and follow better management practices in farm operations.
The app can increase farm income by five to 10 per cent, said Rajamanohar Somasundaram, co-founder and CEO of Aquaconnect.
FarmMOJO understands the farm’s needs, based on the input given by the farmer, as well as the data captured by IoT/smart farm management platforms, and it develops AI models on feeding patterns and disease management. It then offers personalised suggestions on the mobile app to improve farm operations.
Shortly after making a presentation at the Aquaculture Innovation Europe conference in London, the company was able to announce it had raised a seed round of $1.1 million from Indian venture capital firm Omnivore and the aquaculture focused start-up accelerator Hatch.
Prior to this, Aquaconnect had received angel funding from Hatch after participating in its inaugural cohort of start-ups in Bergen last year.
Based in Chennai, Aquaconnect was founded in 2017 and currently has a network of more than 3,000 shrimp farmers across India and Indonesia, who receive support via FarmMOJO. The company plans to expand its customer base across south and south-east Asia.
Aquaconnect links this farmer network to an omni-channel marketplace, where they can transact with feed producers, laboratories, equipment manufacturers, hatcheries, processors, exporters, certification bodies, banks, and insurance companies.
With the current round of funding, Aquaconnect plans to accelerate the growth of its aquaculture farmer network, roll out technical improvements to FarmMOJO, launch new SaaS (software as a service) tools for the aquaculture ecosystem, and expand monetisation across its omni-channel marketplace.
Reihem Roy, who runs Omnivore’s Chennai office, will be joining Aquaconnect’s board to support the company’s growth strategy.
Raj Somasundaram said: ‘The funding will be used for team expansion, enhancing our AI enabled platform offering, and increasing our omni-channel marketplace fulfilment capabilities.
‘We aim to reach 15,000 shrimp and fish farmers across India and Indonesia by December 2020. Omnivore and Hatch understand aquaculture, so they are perfect investors for our first institutional funding round.’
Mark Kahn of Omnivore said: ‘We believe Raj and his team are building one of the most promising agritech start-ups globally, and we look forward to the exciting journey ahead.’
Carsten Krome of Hatch added: ‘Having closely worked with Raj and his team now for more than a year, we are absolutely confident that they can deliver on the sharp growth trajectory that we are sending them on with this capital injection.’