Aqua-Spark, a global aquaculture investment fund based in the Netherlands, AgFunder, a global agrifood tech venture capital firm, and Son Tech Investment, a Vietnam-focused venture capital firm, have joined forces to invest via the AgFunder GROW Impact Fund in Tepbac, which provides shrimp farmers with IoT (Internet of Things)-enabled hardware and a data-driven platform to manage their farms digitally.
Tepbac began as a media enterprise and has evolved into one of the world’s major aquaculture news websites. The company is now focusing on digitizing shrimp farming in order to help shrimp farmers perform better. One of its most notable products is “Envisor,” a remote water cleaning and monitoring equipment that monitors water variables such as pH, oxygen, temperature, and salinity. The company also created the framework for the Farmext smartphone app, which offers farmers software and technology to assist them automate farming activities.
Tepbac currently serves 1,500 farms, ranging from small to large-scale farmers to shrimp processing businesses and the government. Tepbac will use the investment to expand its array of solutions, which are recognized to minimize risk, simplify farming processes, and save money. According to the business, Tepbac has already proven beneficial to farmers, decreasing costs by 20% and increasing earnings by 30%.
The CEO of Aqua-Spark stated that Tepbac was uniquely placed to digitize aquaculture with Vietnam’s focus on increasing sustainable aquaculture production and the modest number of aquatech companies currently operating in the country. Tepbac’s technology piqued Aqua-Spark’s interest since it has the ability to increase market access for small farmers while also enabling more sustainable practices, all while increasing and protecting one of the world’s largest shrimp markets.
(Source: Fish Farmer Magazine)
