FoodMap raised $3 M to link farmers and food producers directly to B2C & B2B customers in Vietnam
Vulpes Ventures and Beenext led an oversubscribed pre-Series A investment of $3 million for FoodMap, an agritech e-commerce platform that connects farmers and food producers directly to B2C and B2B clients. Wavemaker Partners and Ascend Vietnam Ventures also participated in the financing.
Despite recent massive expansion in the manufacturing and technological sectors, Vietnam remains predominantly an agricultural country, with roughly 20% of the population employed in agriculture and associated fields. Multiple middle-men levels result in 6-7x mark-up pricing for end-users and a lack of quality control in food manufacturing results in poor exporting prices and a lack of customer confidence.
“FoodMap wants to help both sides of the equation by optimizing the production process, raising the value of Vietnamese food products, and increasing visibility across the supply chain to strengthen customers’ trust. We currently focus on fresh products, seafood, selected meats, ready-to-cook, and non-perishable products”, Tung shared.
FoodMap uses technology to solve these issues. FoodMap, founded by Pham Ngoc Anh Tung in 2020, promises to bridge the gap between demand and supply across the unseen food chain by providing farmers and suppliers with a back-end management solution.
FoodMap now feeds Vietnam with products from over 300 farmers and producers. Customers may purchase FoodMap’s products through an e-commerce platform and a mobile app. A QR code is included with every product featured on FoodMap.
Farmers benefit from FoodMap because it raises their raw product income by 10-20% while decreasing wasteful mark-ups across numerous layers of middlemen. It also supplies them with data and analytics to help them plan future harvests.
In terms of suppliers, it introduces their brand and narrative to an online audience and begins the process of digitizing sales. FoodMap, for example, has begun to generate up to 50% of certain long-standing businesses’ entire sales volume. Customers, on the other side, benefit from quality control and product discovery.
“One thing that sets FoodMap apart from other foodtech players is our deep understanding of consumers’ taste and building products accordingly for their private label offerings. This helps generate high margin, brand loyalty, and exclusivity as competitive advantages,” added Tung.
Tea & coffee, fruits, ready-to-cook, chocolate, and seafood are FoodMap’s five private label items, which account for the majority of the company’s topline and profit. The company presently operates from two cold storage warehouses in Ho Chi Minh City. To ensure client satisfaction, the majority of items are delivered within 24 hours. With increasing demand from both contemporary trade and general trade outlets, FoodMap wants to expand its B2B footprint. FoodMap has introduced a group buying affiliate programme to facilitate social selling among its clients on the B2C side.
