Agritech startup Eden Farm announced the series A funding of $19 million or equivalent to 271.1 billion Rupiah. The round was led by AppWorks and AC Ventures, with the participation of Trihill Capital, OCBC Ventures, Investible, Corin Capital, and former investor Global Founders Capital.
This funding continues Eden Farm‘s pre-series A round led by investible in February 2021. With the mission of “Feeding the Nation”, Eden Farm has built an integrated food distribution network since 2017. The goal is to simplify the supply chain to increase margins by reducing prices and cutting out middlemen.
In its service, they also provide accurate demand forecasts for farmers by implementing digital acceleration, and achieving production predictability.
According to the statistics, Eden Farm currently serves 53 thousand customers and partners with more than 2 thousand farmers in Java. In order to support the supply chain, they also operate 5 Eden Fulfillment Centers in strategic locations, supported by 400 supplier partners for product availability.
Meanwhile, since 2019 AppWorks has participated in a number of local startup funding, including HarukaEDU series C funding (Nov 2019), Fabelio series C funding (June 2020), InfraDigital series A funding (Jun 2020), and iSeller pre-series B funding (2021).
Apart from Eden Farm, a number of local agritech startups are also trying to solve the same issue. One of them is TaniHub Group. Last May 2021, the platform secured a series B funding of $65.5 million (over 940 billion Rupiah) led by MDI Ventures. This round brought TaniHub’s valuation to over $200 million. Tanihub currently has several business units, including supply chain, financing, and farmer education.
Focus on solving supply chain issue
According to the BPS report, Indonesia has more than 33.4 million farmers, with the agricultural sector contributing 14% of Indonesia’s GDP or a $140 billion market growing 12.93% per quarter (QoQ). However, the agricultural sector still has major challenges related to supply chain efficiency and farmer welfare with many leakages occurring at various levels of the supply chain.
In this case, Eden Farm decided to focus on resolving issues in the supply chain. “We strengthened two important foundations on the supply and demand sides by building Eden Farm Sourcing Center (ESC) and Eden Farm Distribution Network (EDN),” Eden Farm’s Co-founder & CEO, David Gunawan said in an interview with DailySocial.id.
ESC is a program of direct collaboration with farmers to determine cropping patterns, certainty of selling prices, and certainty of the amount of agricultural produce taken every day. Meanwhile, EDN is a distribution network created to empower the community. EDN is spread in various locations and is within a 5 km radius of the customer so that delivery is faster and more efficient.
“Eden Farm is focused on revolutionizing the fresh produce supply chain and creating a strong defense in upstream agricultural technology. As early investors in Eden Farm, we see them growing and achieving their goals as they increase demand channels and build stronger relationships with farmers in the field. We believe Eden Farm can lead the industry towards digitalization and become a leader in B2B agricultural technology,” AC Ventures’ Founder & Managing Partner, Adrian Li said.
Focus on B2B segment
To date, the F&B sector has a market size of $92 billion, with the food sector expected to grow at a CAGR of 8.7%. They are also one of the biggest absorbers of agricultural products.
One of the business processes by Eden Farm is bridging needs on the industrial side, then connecting with farmers. They claim to have a strong operational system by procuring products directly from farmers, creating defenses in upstream agriculture and attracting growth through diversified B2B markets.
Focusing on the B2B market, Eden Farm supplies high quality food ingredients to various customer segments, including hotels, restaurants & cafes (HORECA), traditional markets, and e-commerce.
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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian
