Sayurbox Announces Series C Funding Worth 1.7 Trillion Rupiah

Sayurbox announced that it has secured a series C funding of $120 million or equivalent to 1.7 trillion Rupiah. This investment round was led by Northstar and Alpha JWC Ventures, with participation from the International Finance Corporation (IFC).

Previous investors were involved, including Astra, Syngenta Group Ventures, Global Brain, and several other investors.

This Series C funding comes less than a year after the $15 million Series B funding led by Astra. This acquisition further cements the company in the ranks of the local centaur with an estimated valuation of around $200 million-$400 million.

The fresh funds raised will be used to accelerate the penetration of Sayurbox services in new cities such as Bandung and several other cities, as well as expand Sayurbox’s end-to-end supply chain nationally.

Sayurbox said it has experienced exponential growth through product additions, regional coverage expansion from Greater Jakarta to Surabaya and Bali, as well as building a micro warehouse network for quick commerce services (quick commerce) of Sayurbox and SayurKilat.

Sayurbox was founded with a social mission to provide market access to local farmers through digitizing Indonesian agricultural supply chains.

“The system and ecosystem we developed allows us to have full visibility of the entire agricultural supply chain, providing the best customer experience in terms of product selection, freshness, price and on-time delivery,” said Sayurbox Co-Founder & CEO Amanda Susanti.

Founded in 2017, Sayurbox now provides more than 5,000 agricultural products, meat and fish, as well as prepared food, with delivery coverage in Greater Jakarta, Surabaya and Bali. Sayurbox currently serves around 1 million customers and works with more than 10,000 farmers throughout Indonesia.

Online Grocery In Indonesia

Online grocery services are one of the fastest-growing business models during the pandemic. The limited mobility of the community makes them look for alternatives to get the fulfillment of their basic daily needs.

However, to win the online grocery market share is not an easy matter. The challenges range from providing infrastructure, supply chain systems, to increasingly fierce competition – both with newcomers and previous retail giants.

Developing in the online grocery sector is not easy, given the huge operational and logistical risks, as well as the differences in consumer behavior. However, Sayurbox has found the key and solution to overcome this challenge and has succeeded in growing rapidly and sustainably.

“Sayurbox has now become a world-class company, not inferior to other leading online grocery startups in the world, with operations that allow them to deliver fresh products from farmers to consumers in just 12 hours,” said Alpha JWC Ventures Partner Eko Kurniadi.

Online Grocery Growth In Indonesia Since 2021

Throughout 2022, the online grocrey industry in Indonesia has indeed become more interesting to watch. Last January, Kedai Sayur just announced a fresh fund of 50 billion Rupiah and confirmed itself to be part of the Triputra Group.

This was followed by CT Corp and Bukalapak which launched AlloFresh — affiliated with the Transmart retail business. Astro and Bananas also booked funding for deeper penetration in their quick commerce services. Lastly, Traveloka introduces features similar to online grocery as part of the lifestyle superapp.

According to a study conducted by L.E.K. Consulting, an online grocery service in Indonesia whose market value has reached $1 billion in 2021, is projected to grow rapidly to $6 billion by 2025.

This huge potential value is also seen by local technology giants as an opportunity. For example, Blibli did this by acquiring the parent Ranch Market to strengthen the penetration of fresh food products.

GoTo previously acquired a 6.74% stake in the Hypermart retail network to strengthen its omnichannel strategy in basic necessities. Lastly, Traveloka has started to introduce features similar to online grocery in its application.