Eden Farm Announces IDR 271 Billion Series A Funding

Eden Farm, an agritech startup just announced the acquisition of series A funding of $19 million (IDR 271.1 billion) from AC Ventures and Appworks. 

There are other investors such as Trihill Capital, Investible, OCBC Ventures, Corin Capital, and their former investor Global Founders Capital.

This funding continues Eden Farm’s acquisition in the investible-led pre-series A round in February 2021. Carrying the mission of “Feeding the Nation”, Eden Farm has built an integrated food distribution network since 2017.

The goal is to simplify the supply chain in order to increase the margins by cutting out middlemen and reducing prices. In their service, they also provide accurate demand forecasts for farmers by implementing digital acceleration, and achieving production predictability.

From the statistics presented, Eden Farm currently serves 53 thousand customers and partners with more than 2 thousand farmers on the island of Java. 

To support the supply chain, they also operate 5 Eden Fulfillment Centers in strategic locations and are supported by 400 supplier partners for product availability.

Meanwhile, since 2019 AppWorks has participated in a number of local startup funding, including HarukaEDU series C funding (Nov 2019), Fabelio series C funding (Jun 2020), InfraDigital series A funding (Jun 2020), and iSeller B pre-series funding. (2021).

Apart from Eden Farm, a number of local agritech startups are also trying to solve the same issue. One of them is TaniHub Group. Last May 2021, they were reported to have secured a series B funding of $65.5 million (over 940 billion Rupiah) led by MDI Ventures.

This round brought TaniHub’s valuation to over $200 million. Tanihub itself currently has several business units, including supply chain, financing, and farmer education.

Focus On Solving Supply Chain Issues

According to the BPS report, Indonesia has more than 33.4 million farmers, with the agricultural sector contributing 14% of Indonesia’s GDP or a $140 billion market growing 12.93% per quarter (QoQ).

However, the agricultural sector still has major challenges related to supply chain efficiency and farmer welfare with many leakages occurring at various levels of the supply chain.

From these problems, Eden Farm has chosen to focus on resolving issues in the supply chain. “We are strengthening two important foundations on the supply and demand sides by building Eden Farm Sourcing Center (ESC) and Eden Farm Distribution Network (EDN),” said Eden Farm Co-founder & CEO David Gunawan in an interview.

ESC is a program of direct collaboration with farmers to determine cropping patterns, the certainty of selling prices, and certainty of the amount of agricultural produce taken every day. Meanwhile, EDN is a distribution network created by empowering the community.

EDN is spread in various locations and is within a 5 km radius of the customer so that delivery is faster and more efficient. Eden Farm focuses on revolutionizing the supply chain of fresh produce and creating a strong defense in upstream agricultural technology.

As early investors in Eden Farm, AC Ventures sees them growing and achieving their goals as they increase demand channels and build stronger relationships with farmers in the field.

“We believe Eden Farm can lead the industry towards digitalization and become a leader in B2B agricultural technology,” said Adrian Li, Founder & Managing Partner of AC Ventures.

Focus on the B2B Segment

To date, the F&B sector has a market size of $92 billion, with the food sector expected to grow at a CAGR of 8.7%. They are also one of the biggest absorbers of agricultural products.

One of the business processes carried out by Eden Farm is bridging needs on the industrial side, then connecting with farmers.

They claim to have a strong operational system by procuring products directly from farmers, creating defenses in upstream agriculture and attracting growth through diverse B2B markets.

Focusing on the B2B market, Eden Farm supplies high-quality food ingredients to various customer segments, including hotels, restaurants & cafes (HORECA), traditional markets, and e-commerce.