Social commerce startup Bakool secured seed funding from multiple investors

The social commerce start-up Bakool, located in Indonesia, reported that it has received “several million” dollars in initial investment from Kleiner Perkins, Goodwater Capital, Insignia Ventures Partners, and Global Brain. The round was also attended by Mari Elka Pangestu, who was the nation’s minister of trade from 2004 to 2011 and its minister of tourism and the creative economy from 2011 to 2014.

Bakool manages a platform for group purchases that provides consumers in Indonesia’s secondary cities with fresh food. It features a network of agents that gather demand and place orders on the platform. These agents are primarily homemakers and community leaders. The next day, agents will get the items.

In 2021, the company was established as Radius, a rapid commerce service. It changed its name and shifted to the present social commerce concept in the past five months.

Ivan Darmawan, a former executive at Traveloka and Grab, and Stephanie Wongsoredjo, a retail industry veteran with more than 15 years of expertise, founded the company. The W22 cohort of Y Combinator includes Bakool.

Super, Dagangan, and Evermos are a few other social commerce firms from Indonesia. But what distinguishes Bakool from its rivals, who place a greater emphasis on FMCG and groceries, is its concentration on fresh fruit, according to Darmawan.

He cites how the distribution process “primarily happens at night” and the “poor availability” of supply chain networks in Tier 2 cities as examples of how “fresh produce is notably different from other commodities.”

Currently, Semarang and other Central Javan cities are home to Bakool. The most frequently purchased goods on the site are mangoes, eggs, garlic, and chilies.