Utari Octavianty: Changing the livelihood of 1M Fisherfolks for Good while creating Sustainable Fisheries

By Milton Ng and Elise Tan

This International Women’s Day 2022, we are sharing beautiful, untold stories of our female founders overcoming the odds and obstacles to build businesses that are disruptive, yet transformative to the lives of many.

Women have often played an unsung role in traditionally male-dominated industries, such as the fisheries industry. Breaking these gender barriers is the co-founder and Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) of Aruna, Utari Octavianty.

About Aruna and its impact

Founded in 2016, Aruna is a one-stop platform and end-to-end supply chain aggregator that streamlines the process for Indonesia’s fishermen and fish farmers to access a much larger, global marketplace. The company has witnessed tremendous growth over the past five years, having expanded 400 times from 2017 to 2021, and the existing demand for supply from Aruna’s platform outstrips the current supply by more than five times. In the last year alone, Aruna sold 44 million kilograms of seafood to more than eight countries.

Besides providing a marketplace, Aruna cares deeply about improving the livelihood of “fisherfolks”. As of 2021, it has nurtured 100 communities of fishermen with over 26,000 registered “fisherfolks”. According to a 5-year impact study, most of the fishermen were able to sell blue swimming crabs and lobsters to Aruna for a higher price. Aruna’s registered fishermen also benefit from a significant increase in income and command a higher income than non-Aruna’s. Beyond raising their income, Aruna also equipped the “fisherfolks” with knowledge regarding regulations on fishing practices and financial literacy, through organizing workshops together with their partner, Institut Pertanian Bogor (IPB).

The platform also generated 5,000 job opportunities in the rural areas of Indonesia to support their operations, driving the nation’s economic growth.

Utari’s startup journey

Born and raised in a fisherman village in Balikpapan, Kalimantan Timur, and with her family engaged in the fishing trade, Utari’s childhood revolved around fisheries. Her uncle is a fisherman, while her parents made a living by selling fishing gears.

“I’m very grateful that my parents saw education as a way out of poverty and they were adamant in sending me through to university despite financial difficulties. Education has changed my life and hence, I too, would like to uplift other women and their families and help them break out of their poverty cycle.” Utari shares.

As fate has it, it was also at her alma mater, the technology focused Telkom University, where she met her two other co-founders, Farid Naufal Aslam and Indraka Fadhlillah. Bonded by the common thread that is fishing, the trio saw immense potential in digitalizing the fishing industry in Indonesia.

As the CSO, Utari spearheads Aruna’s vision of empowering local communities and to create a sustainable fishing ecosystem. That entails building of more efficient infrastructure and the implementation of best practices to ensure durable supply chains and improve coastal life.

This story is not all smooth sailing though. Like choppy waters in the sea, Utari’s own journey has been fraught with cultural stereotypes and naysayers — her own safety was even put on the line at times.

Empowering women and communities

Aruna’s success is beyond its technological advances. Rather, the softer elements of the business is what makes Aruna the king/queen of the ocean. The founders have a common mission and desire to create diverse communities, powered by education and a supportive ecosystem.

Not all was easy on her journey though, as she was met with resistance along the way. First, it was tough to convince local women to become part of the journey and seek employment. Utari shared, “Traditionally, wives were the caretakers in the family and discouraged from working in certain parts of Indonesia. We thought Aruna could be a catalyst to transform mindsets and enable the women to work and supplement their family’s income too. I reached out first to fishermen’s wives in my village and trained and hired them to work on quality control and processing of seafood like crab.” She shared.

This also turned out to be a blessing in disguise for the company, as these processed, value added products were highly sought after by their B2B consumers.

Secondly, Utari also faced a lot of personal obstacles such as men who “catcalled” and tried to undermine what she was doing. She even faced angry villagers who were unfamiliar with the idea of Aruna and wanted to chase her and her cofounders out. Despite all the challenges faced, Utari took them in her stride and continued to show empathy and determination to enact change.

Aruna positions itself as a women-friendly workplace, as female employees are encouraged to attend to their household matters before coming to work. Riding on a tidal wave of “fempowerment”, the ability to make a living and take care of their families appealed to many of the local housewives, as female participation swelled to almost 250 employees this year.

The Boy who is called Aruna

By now, I was even more impressed by Utari and the work she has done for her community. Her dedication to embolden the masses and to give women and locals a voice has drastically changed the lives of many. Besides women empowerment, Aruna also aims to develop and nurture the skillsets of young people who come from coastal communities, such as through the “local heroes’ project.

Utari shared, “One of my most memorable moments at Aruna is helping someone from a local fishing village who didn’t have the chance to attend school. But I felt he has a good attitude and our team ran him through their training and education programs to equip him with the skills to operate as a “local hero”. It changed his life and out of gratitude, he named his newborn “Aruna”. I was pleasantly surprised but also happy that we managed to change his life for the better.”

Partnership with Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia and India

Aruna’s journey with Vertex first began in 2020, when Vertex participated in their pre-Series round. Vertex continued to participate in the US$35 M series A round, and then led the recent Series A extension round (US$30 M) in 2022. This support marked Vertex’s strong commitment to growth in the region, and the positive social impact that Aruna has brought about to fishermen and the local communities.

“Aruna already has a great team in place, led by founders who have shown the tenacity and ability to execute. As an investor with over 30 years of investing in tech start-ups, we add value by sharing the wisdom we have gained from investing in and building unicorns (e.g. Grab, Patsnap, Nium, Licious, FirstCry) with Aruna. We also regularly organize knowledge and network sharing amongst our foodtech or agritech companies to enable cross-learning of best practices and provide a platform for them to reach out to each other for collaboration. In addition, our portfolio could typically tap on our Vertex Ventures global footprint in 12 cities (which has presence in Southeast Asia, India, Japan, Korea, China, USA, Europe and Israel), especially as they are global export markets for Aruna.”, shares Dhia Izza Nabila, associate director at Vertex Ventures SEA.

Her advice to other female entrepreneurs

Seeing that female entrepreneurs in Indonesia remain a minority, Utari believes that the key to success is to believe in oneself and have a strong support system. The latter was crucial, as she pointed out that a strong support system is important when personal morale feels low and they can be a source of positive feedback. “Believe in yourself, and believe in what your hard work can achieve”.

Like this story? Please like, comment and share. And read our other stories of our portfolio female founders?here.