East Ventures, Trihill Capital led undisclosed funding raised by Indonesia’s UENA
A hyperlocal online food and beverage (F&B) startup based in Indonesia named UENA has raised an undisclosed sum of new funding that was co-led by East Ventures, an existing investor, and Trihill Capital, a new investor.
Following the seed funding raised in September 2022, this new round, which was closed in the first quarter, strengthens UENA’s balance sheet, the organization said in a statement on Monday.
The fund will reportedly be used to keep expanding the facilities and services so that they can reach more users and clients.
UENA claimed that it is currently preparing for growth and duplication in Jakarta.
Each kitchen needs little upfront money, can be quickly set up, and can utilize a variety of spaces.
“After implementation and execution of our idea, we feel fortunate to see the validation we receive from the market. The majority of our orders come from repeat customers and their orders continue to increase from month to month,
“Even though we have only been operating for less than one year, the mature stores are already break-even and getting a healthy payback period. The new fund adds our confidence to continue capturing the great opportunity ahead,” said Alvin Arief, Co-Founder, and Chief Executive Officer of UENA.
In order to increase repeat business at multiple mealtimes each day and on various days of the week, UENA will also keep adding new menu items.
Alvin Arief and Roy Yohanes, co-founders and chief operating officers of UENA, launched it in August 2022. Since then, it has opened 7 kitchen locations in Jakarta and served more than 300.000 portions.
To reduce delivery costs and times, each kitchen only serves a hyperlocal radius of 1 to 1.5 km. Delivery is handled internally. After a customer places an order, a typical order will come in 15 minutes.
Customers can place direct orders for UENA by calling the UENA WhatsApp number or using the UENA app. Since more than 80% of its orders come through direct channels, it does not rely heavily on food delivery aggregators.
“We are glad to double down our investment in UENA. We believe in the problem and solution that was presented by Alvin and Roy when we first invested,
“A couple of months in, the idea turned into a real conviction with the real feedback received from the market. We are excited to continue our support to UENA and partake in the disruption of the daily food industry in Indonesia,” said Jordy Tenka, Investment Professional at East Ventures.
The daily food segment in Indonesia represents a $90 billion market each year, but almost all of it is supplied by shady street vendors, according to UENA. Due to the high fragmentation, customers experience pain, particularly in the areas of quality, dependability, and cost.
UENA aims to address this issue by providing high-quality food via online delivery at reasonable costs. It makes use of a very simple cloud kitchen format and uses technology and economies of scale to boost quality while lowering costs at the same time.
