Kedai Sayur Raised $1.3 Million Seed Funding Led by East Ventures
27 May 2019
Jakarta, 27 May 2019 — Kedai Sayur, Indonesian startup that empowers vegetable hawkers by utilizing technology, announced earlier today that they have secured $1.3 Million of seed funding led by East Ventures. The investment will accelerate Kedai Sayur’s mission to onboard more vegetable hawkers as their partner.
Kedai Sayur, which translates to “Vegetable Kiosk”, was established in late 2018 with the mission to provide vegetable hawkers the best quality and price of fresh commodities for their selling products. The company was founded by the former Deputy Director for Business Process and IT of Triputra Group, Adrian Hernanto, along with Ahmad Supriyadi and Rizki Novian.
Fresh commodities like vegetables, fruit, meat, and fish, are consumed daily by people in Indonesia. In 2017 alone, the total consumption of those fresh commodities in Greater Jakarta, Bandung, and Surabaya area is estimated to be US$8.4B. The sales and distribution of this fresh produce that last for less than a week, mostly still relying on traditional distribution network called ‘tukang sayur’ (vegetable hawkers).
There are two types of vegetable grocers in Indonesia; one is a typical kiosks style who provide fresh produce for the walk-in customer and another is a hawkers-style that use handcarts and sells their fresh produce door-to-door.
While most customers rely on vegetable hawkers to get their daily fresh produces, hawkers are struggling due to the complex nature in getting high-quality yet affordable fresh produce from a single source. The journey of fresh produce itself begins with farmers pool their products to multiple aggregators. Aggregators will then distribute it to several vendors at the central market. Every midnight, hawkers buy their supplies from these vendors before re-selling them to customers in a residential area. This long process multiplies the products price, leaving hawkers with low-quality products and low profit margin.
Kedai Sayur tackles that problem by working with several farmers and partners directly for product sourcing and distribution. Vegetable hawkers who joined Kedai Sayur as partner (called Mitra Sayur) can access these products in one-click away through Kedai Sayur apps and pick them up from the nearest drop-off points. For grocers, they can register themselves as Kedai Sayur’s drop-off point.
Kedai Sayur also offers their partners with a new kind of delivery vehicles called “Si Komo” (stands for Kedai on Mobile) that can help them to reach their door-to-door customer in a more efficient way. The uniquely designed vehicle can be transformed and utilized for other services such as delivering packages or selling foods, allowing them to have additional income other than selling fresh produce only. Kedai Sayur also provides financing program for partners who have limited capital to purchase the vehicle.
Adrian Hernanto, CEO of Kedai Sayur said, “For the longest time, many have attempted to fix this problem but none yet to succeed. With our vast network and technology utilization, we can empower fresh produce market and prove that the grassroots economy like the vegetable hawkers can also feel the benefit of technology inclusion. We trust our mission will improve hawker’s overall life as we free them from working odd hours and open multiple potentials of revenue streams.”
To date, Kedai Sayur has more than 2,000 vegetable hawkers joining as their partner in Greater Jakarta area and the number continues to grow by 60% per month. 80% of the partners actively sell their products and the company’s gross merchandise value (GMV) grow by 5x in the last four months.
Willson Cuaca, the Managing Partner of East Ventures, said, “Door-to-door vegetable hawkers probably had existed from hundreds of years ago in Indonesia. Surprisingly, they are still available in today’s modern society, standing side-by-side with the fast-growing modern supermarket and convenience store. In fact, the vegetable hawkers are one the most convenient way to get our daily produce.”
“Kedai Sayur fits into two of East Ventures hypothesis. The first one, technology inclusion to upgrade the underserved merchant accessing technology and second, improvement of Indonesia supply chain. There is local wisdom that helps traditional on-demand vegetable hawker to exist for so long and we want to preserve that culture with a touch of technology,” he closed.
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About Kedai Sayur
Founded in October 2018, Kedai Sayur is an Indonesian startup with a strong mission to bring technology inclusion for vegetable hawkers in the country and improve their life quality. With a strong ecosystem of farmers, assortment facility, and distribution network, Kedai Sayur builds efficient networks of daily produce distribution and open the access for local vegetable hawkers to the best quality and price of fresh produce in one-click away.
About East Ventures
East Ventures is an early stage venture fund focused on Southeast Asia and Japan. Over several years, East Ventures has invested in hundreds of companies in Indonesia, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, and Thailand. The majority of East Ventures’ portfolio firms have been able to raise follow-on financing rounds.
East Ventures has a strong track record in developing pan-Asia tech-ecosystems and backing startups in their early days. The company has invested in over 140 startups and among them are named the unicorn. Success cases include companies such as Tokopedia, Traveloka, Warung Pintar, Fore Coffee, Disdus (acquired by Groupon), Kudo (acquired by Grab), Loket (acquired by Gojek), Tech in Asia, Omise, IDN Media, Ruangguru, MokaPOS, ShopBack, and CoHive. https://east.vc