The problem
Indonesia is one of the world’s largest fisheries producers, but the industry is deeply fragmented: small boats with one-to-two-tonne capacity sell through six or seven middleman layers, absorbing price instability while buyers get untraceable supply. Two founders came from fishing families and met the third studying IT at Telkom University — they built Aruna in 2016 to collapse that chain the way farm-to-table startups aggregated agriculture.
How it works
Buyers order through the platform and Aruna distributes purchase orders to fisher communities organized by species, so demand is predictable and overfishing is curbed. Catch lands at 45+ collection sites — owned or partner-run warehouses — for quality checks, processing and packaging, then moves via third-party logistics to restaurants, markets and exporters. High-value commodities like lobster ship to Malaysia, Singapore, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Canada and the US. Field teams standardize equipment and steer fishers away from overfished zones under UN Goal 14 sustainability criteria.
Pain points
Demand and price whiplash for small fishers, no cold chain or grading, exclusion from working capital, and exporters unable to verify sustainability.
Business model
Buy-sell margins on seafood flowing through the platform, plus loan-channel economics: Aruna supplies transaction data for credit scoring so banks and fintechs can extend low-interest, collateral-free equipment loans to its fishers.
Challenges
A reported $60M round collapsed at the final stage in 2023, and from December 2024 to January 2025 Aruna cut about 40% of its workforce in a restructuring CEO Farid Naufal Aslam framed as a bid for long-term sustainability. The company says it continues to serve coastal communities — but must now prove the marketplace can grow without fresh mega-rounds.
Funding
- Raised: $35M Series A led by Prosus Ventures and East Ventures Growth Fund (Jul 2021), plus a $30M follow-on led by Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India (Jan 2022) — $65M total Series A.
- Valuation: no public valuation disclosed.
Latest — March 2025
Aruna confirmed a restructuring cutting roughly 40% of employees over December 2024–January 2025, pledging sustainable growth and continued support for fishermen and coastal stakeholders as investor confidence in agri-fisheries waned.