The B2B marketplace platform for FMCG, GudangAda, has secured another investment of $100 million or around 1.49 trillion rupiah. This is a series B funding round led by Asia Partners and Falcon Edge.
Also, Sequoia Capital India, Alpha JWC Ventures, and Wavemake Partners are participated in this funding. For GudangAda, this investment has exceeded its initial target, which was $75 million. With the additional funding, GudangAda has now raised a total investment of up to $135 million.
Falcon Edge’s Co-Founder, Navroz D. Udwadia said, after years of investing in a number of marketplace, Stevensang seemed to have the ability to execute business in a short time. Therefore, he is optimistic that GudangAda will become the largest marketplace for Indonesian MSMEs
“With our research and discussion with principals, wholesalers and retailers, we are confident in GudangAda’s return on investment (ROI) and the benefits it offers to the entire ecosystem,” he said.
Enhance the supply chain business
GudangAda’s Founder and CEO, Stevensang said the company is now in the right path to empower all players in the Indonesian supply chain ecosystem, from producers, distributors, wholesalers, to retailers. GudangAda said its services have been used by nearly half a million users in more than 500 cities in tier 1 to tier 3 with a comprehensive monetization model and complete ecosystem.
“We will expand GudangAda’s team and enhance our service ecosystem from logistics, payment systems (POS/SaaS), marketing, data, to financial services. We will also strengthen our position by developing artificial intelligence to offer the best personalized services to SME traders,” he said in an official statement.
Meanwhile, GudangAda’s CFO, JJ Ang said that investors’ enthusiasm has proven GudangAda’s success in building a platform with efficient capital while reaping growth. GudangAda is said to start monetizing its business since the first quarter of 2020.
GudangAda claims to be one of the B2B marketplace platforms with the fastest growth and most productive capital in the Southeast Asia region. Based on the records, GudangAda has raised $6 billion Net Merchandise Value (NMV) in less than three years.
Meanwhile, the total investment value is less than $35 million with an efficiency ratio of 170 times. Moreover, the GudangAda Logistik service has been recorded to have doubled every two months since its launching in mid-2020.
Applying the asset-light and capital-efficient business concept, GudangAda has collaborated with vehicle and warehouse business owners, including its MSMEs members. In addition, GudangAda offers a dynamic transportation and warehouse management service system to make it easier for partners to digitize their business.
GudangAda offers a one-stop solution for MSME players to make it easier to access various products. By targeting the FMCG sector, GudangAda has expanded its product categories to medicines, pharmaceuticals, and household appliances. Since the category expansion, GudangAda has experienced an increase in transactions from tens of thousands of MSMEs.
Currently, GudangAda has officially partnered with more than 65 principals, both local, national and multinational. One of these investments is used to expand cooperation with more principals.
MSME as the target market
In a general note, the number of MSME players in Indonesia is estimated to reach more than 65 million as of 2020. With the digital acceleration last year, SIRCLO’s e-commerce enabler report revealed that online retailers are expected to contribute 24% in 2022. In the report, sales on digital channels can be maximized, especially by FMCG brands which market everyday products.
B2B marketplace services such as GudangAda allow these MSME actors to get product stock more efficiently.
Actually, GudangAda is not thesole player in this sector. There are others, including Ula that also working on the existing potential. In addition, with a different approach, the online marketplace giants are promoting O2O strategies to make it easier for small traders to access various products — for example, by Mitra Bukalapak or Mitra Tokopedia.
The digitization, in the long term, also provides MSMEs with potential to gain more benefits, including financially. One of the scenarios started to be promoted is that recorded transaction data can be used as a credit scoring variable to help MSME players gain access to capital financing. Thus, it will support their efforts to increase the capability and size of the business they are starting.
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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian
