Fishing Bigger Margins: How Aquapulse Is Solving Shrimp Farming’s Biggest Bottleneck

India’s aquaculture sector has long struggled with a simple but costly problem: farmers produce high-value shrimp, but much of that value is lost before the product reaches the buyer. Inefficiencies in aggregation, post-harvest handling and market access continue to hold back both farmer incomes and export potential.

While studying fisheries science at the Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology in the 2010s, Abhishek Dwivedy began questioning why India, despite its long coastline and maritime history, accounted for only 5% of the global seafood market. 

After graduating, Dwivedy worked across the seafood value chain, including procurement, processing, quality management and exports, to learn the ropes of the trade. He later joined Solidaridad Network, where he worked with nearly 15,000 farmers across India and Bangladesh. 

This on-ground exposure helped him see the gap more clearly: fish farmers were creating value, but the system around them was not capturing enough of it. For him, the answer was not just about scale, but about building a more sustainable and profitable aquaculture system. 

“The first thing that needed to be safeguarded was what farmers were already producing. Technology alone couldn’t have solved that. It had to be accompanied by a physical presence on the ground,” said Dwivedy. 

This paved the way for Aquapulse. Founded in 2023 by Dwivedy and his sister-in-law, Ananya Mohapatra, and later joined by Dwivedy’s sibling, Abhilash, the startup is building a shrimp farming and export platform based in Odisha. Aquapulse combines farmer advisory, aggregation, and export market access on a single platform for fish farmers in the state. 

Inside The Genesis Of Aquapulse

Aquapulse began to take shape after Abhilash, who spent over a decade working at companies like Syngenta, Bayer Crop Science and FMC, returned to Bhubaneswar to build the venture. 

The startup initially began as a shrimp advisory effort in coastal Odisha. Working with 300 to 400 farmers, the siblings focused on helping them adopt better aquaculture practices and produce export-grade shrimp. Over time, that consulting-led model evolved into a wider digital platform.

Today, Aquapulse works mainly with Vannamei shrimp farmers, which the founders see as well-suited to sustainable inland aquaculture. The startup currently works with around 6,000 farmers and aims to increase the number to 10,000 by the end of 2026. 

Aquapulse’s model is built on three pillars: aggregation, advisory and market linkage. Its field teams onboard farmers, conduct random sampling, train them on cultivation practices and monitor quality throughout the production cycle. 

Farmers receive support from local aquapreneurs who work directly with farmer clusters, while the platform provides specialised guidance on shrimp cultivation, disease management, harvest planning and seafood trade. Aquapulse has a team of around 70 employees, with a significant share of its advisory and field operations staff holding qualifications in fisheries and aquaculture.

On the back of this, the startup claims that participating farmers see gross margin gains of 7% to 8% in the first year, which improved to 11% to 13% after introducing export-led operations. Aquapulse attributes much of this improvement to better harvest planning, lower feed costs and access to premium overseas markets. Aquapulse works with a 7 to 14-day harvest planning window, helping farmers optimise feeding schedules before harvest. 

“A farmer can earn an additional ₹1.5 Lakh to ₹2 Lakh per pond per crop cycle, averaging three months, through improved planning, quality management, and market access, against an annual cost of about ₹10-12 Lakh,” Abhishek said.

This margin uplift is only part of the story. Aquapulse is also rethinking how seafood is tracked, moved and sold online.

Aquapulse’s Tech Stack 

The startup is pairing its on-ground farmer network with an in-house digital stack spanning the full value chain. It runs a direct farm-to-export model, working closely with shrimp farmers rather than relying on intermediaries. 

It buys harvests directly, carries out quality and compliance checks and supplies export-grade, antibiotic-free shrimp to international buyers. This model is supported by a proprietary cold-chain logistics system, including a patented ice-slurry transport process designed to preserve shrimp quality from pond to processing facility.

The startup has also built a proprietary tech stack across three stages of the aquaculture value chain. The ‘Pond Harvest’ module tracks pond health, water quality and harvest readiness, while the ‘Shrimp Pro’ stack evaluates shrimp quality and export suitability. Finally, the ‘Export Intelligence’ stack analyses global demand, pricing trends, tariffs and trade flows.

Unlike traditional exporters who first buy inventory and then look for buyers, Aquapulse follows a demand-led approach. The startup’s trade intelligence portal brings together data from sources such as the Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA), the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and other databases to generate real-time market intelligence, buyer demand signals, pricing forecasts and supply-demand analysis. 

By tracking stocking cycles and harvest timelines across its farmer network, the startup claims that it can estimate the quantity, size and quality of shrimp weeks in advance, allowing it to engage buyers and negotiate contracts before harvest. Its field teams also leverage AI-powered image analysis to help assess shrimp quality and inform buying decisions.

Beyond The Pond

For Dwivedy, the real challenge in aquaculture begins after the shrimp leaves the pond. While much of the industry’s attention is focused on feed, seed, medicines and farm management, Aquapulse has built its model around ensuring that farmers have a reliable route to market. The startup currently exports to Vietnam, China and Japan and plans to expand into additional international markets such as the European and US markets. 

The startup is also expanding its processing capacity and plans to build a facility focused on value-added seafood products, including ready-to-cook and ready-to-eat offerings. Looking ahead, the startup plans to expand into black tiger shrimp, which it claims offers advantages such as being antibiotic-free, pathogen-free and a uniform size range of 35 to 40 grams. 

To support its expansion, the startup raised ₹45 Cr in funding earlier this month, including ₹25 Cr from state-backed NABVentures and the remaining ₹20 crore from IAN Alpha Fund. On the financial front, Aquapulse reported an income of ₹22 Cr with a profit of ₹15 Lakh in FY25. 

Nevertheless, challenges remain. India’s aquaculture startup ecosystem is witnessing healthy traction as startups look to modernise shrimp farming, one of the country’s most valuable agricultural export sectors. 

Aquapulse, a relatively new player, faces stiff competition from players like Aquaconnect, AquaExchange, AquaSetu and Blue Ponds Aqua. Many of these players, including Abhishek’s former employer Aquaconnect, have raised millions of dollars in funding. 

However, Dwivedy is unperturbed. He believes that their biggest differentiator is the startup’s profitable, full-stack business model focused on small and marginal shrimp farmers, a segment largely underserved by competitors. 

According to him, while many aquaculture startups concentrate on pre-harvest services such as farm inputs and advisory, Aquapulse’s core strength lies in post-harvest market linkage, processing and exports. 

Whether the export-led model can scale remains to be seen. Seafood exports are highly cyclical and exposed to fluctuations in global demand, trade regulations, and disease outbreaks. As Aquapulse expands, it will have to demonstrate that its market-linkage model can consistently generate margins while serving thousands of smallholder farmers. 

[Edited by Shishir Parasher]

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