Sayurbox, Indonesia’s biggest B2C and B2B e-grocery business, has received more than US $120 million in an oversubscribed Series C round headed by Northstar and Alpha JWC Ventures.
International Finance Corporation, Astra, Syngenta Group Ventures, Global Brain, and unknown angel investors are among the investors.
The money will be used to expand in new and current locations, as well as to extend the company’s end-to-end supply chain nationally.
Sayurbox is an e-commerce grocery business that was founded in 2017 with the goal of making fresh food more accessible and inexpensive to end users. Fresh vegetables, meat and poultry, snacks, and ready-to-eat recipes are among the more than 5,000 SKUs available.
Sayurbox promises to service one million clients in Java and Bali and to collaborate with over 10,000 farmers around the country.
The fresh round of capital comes less than a year after the company received $15 million in Series B funding led by Astra. Sayurbox has expanded its product line since then, moving from Greater Jakarta to Surabaya (East Java) and Bali, as well as establishing a network of micro-fulfilment hubs to support Sayurbox’s rapid commerce service, SayurKilat.
Eko Kurniadi, Partner at Alpha JWC Ventures, said: “Growing in this vertical is difficult as there are huge execution risks especially given the fragmented logistics and different consumer behaviour in cities across Indonesia. However, Sayurbox has figured out the playbook to tackle these challenges by building a proprietary supply chain comparable to global e-grocery leaders.”
With a retail value of more than $120 billion, groceries are one of Indonesia’s most important consumer sectors. Food supply networks, on the other hand, are highly fragmented and inefficient. Direct from farm e-grocery enterprises help to shorten the supply chain, decreasing food waste and shipping expenses while improving farmer profits and lowering consumer prices.
According to Google, Temasek, and Bain’s e-Conomy SEA 2021 research, the current pandemic has boosted e-Grocery adoption among Southeast Asian customers, with one out of every four grocery dollars likely to be spent online by 2030.
