500 Culinary Startups Interested in Funding from Gojek and Digitaraya

Decacorn from Indonesia; Gojek cooperates with Digitaraya (a startup’s accelerator) to create an accelerator company for the culinary business called Digitarasa. Around 500 culinary startups from various cities have registered to obtain the funding.

Digitarasa CEO Arnold Poernomo said Digitarasa was established to accelerate the culinary startup business by providing assistance and funding. He said, the culinary business was indeed potential, but now the ecosystem had changed and startups had to adjust.

“Now this makes the restaurant different from using social media, it’s easy to build it. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to maintain its sustainability,” Arnold said in Jakarta on Monday (24/2).

Data from the Creative Economy Agency (Bekraf) and the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) said, the contribution of the culinary subsector to the creative economy business unit in 2016 has reached 41.69%. That value is the highest compared to 15 other creative economy sub-sectors.

Arnold said that he opened a variety of businesses in any culinary sector, both registering food and drinks. There are several requirements that must be met by startups, such as products that are ready to sell, not franchises, must be prepared with the use of technology, and practical packaging.

Until Now, there have been 500 Startups Registered

Until now, 500 culinary startups are registered in Digitarasa. “500 startups have already registered. We have seen from them for a week, and then later we can set the target,” Arnold said.

Startups that register are open from any area, the farthest from Medan and Makassar. After verification, the startup will get assistance from several mentors. Some mentors who will accompany include Arnold who is also a chef, CEO of Kopi Kenangan Edward Tirtanata, as well as from GoFood, and Digitaraya.

The material provided is about operational management, branding, marketing, product development, market research, and others. Not only assistance, but Digitarasa will also filter startups and then facilitate its funding. The source of funding comes from Gojek as the parent of GoFood and Digitaraya.

However, Gojek and Digitaraya have not been able to disclose the value of funding facilities at the filtered startup. “We do not yet have an exact figure of funding value,” Digitaraya Managing Director, Nicole Yap said.

However, until now Digitaraya already has many networks with investors. This year there are already 15 investors ready to fund startups facilitated by Digitaraya.

Likewise, with Gojek, Gojek Group Chief Food Officer Catherine Hindra Sutjahyo said after getting assistance from Digitarasa, culinary startups were open to become part of the Gojek ecosystem. “After getting funding, we will prepare business partners,” said Catherine.

Digitarasa; from World-Class Mentors to Funding

Through the Digitarasa acceleration program, culinary entrepreneurs can get access to comprehensive business development from world-class mentors to access to capital.

Gojek Group Chief Food Officer, Catherine Hindra Sutjahyo said that for 5 years being a growth partner of culinary MSME partners, the company understood the challenges faced by merchants to develop businesses including business management, marketing, and capital.

With continuous technological innovation, the company (Gojek) is able to bridge the needs of the merchant partners from upstream to downstream. GoFood has grown beyond food-delivery services, Gofood’s role has become an enabler that continues to support culinary entrepreneurs to be highly competitive in the industry.

After the success of Gojek Xcelerate, this time Gojek collaborated again through Digitarasa to help accelerate the business growth of local culinary startups.

This year, Digitarasa will run 4 (four) batches with a series of similar programs targeting the maximum number of selected local culinary startup participants. Later, dozens of the best culinary startups will get access to business capital and join exclusively in the Gojek ecosystem.