Heaptalk, Jakarta — ESB’s AI technology, OLIN, has boosted its business revenue by up to 40%. This outcome pointed to the robust potential of AI and Generative AI to transform micro-enterprises in emerging markets, including Indonesia, amidst tremendous business obstacles to accessing traditional financial resources.
AI OLIN exemplifies how AI can address gaps in financial access and support business growth. OLIN has become a vital tool for F&B merchants looking to enhance their financial stability and operational efficiency by providing predictive insights, menu recommendations, pricing strategies, and fraud prevention measures. As is known, OLIN is designed with four core values, including:
- Security, ensuring data safety and confidentiality as overall data is collected and processed within ESB’s servers
- Accuracy, with detailed and precise daily data processing that provides complete and thorough reports
- Reliability, as OLIN processes real-time data from daily transactions of each brand, delivering specific recommendations of each brand that have been tested over two years with several ESB merchants
- Convenience, ensuring automated data processing and practical recommendation presentation
“ESB is an Indonesia-based startup that offers F&B software and integrates in-store automation with backend operations. We support our merchants in managing their supply chain relationships. Our acquisition of a payment gateway last year has enabled us to handle critical transaction and cash flow data, which is vital for enhancing financial stability for our merchants and their supplier,” Co-Founder and CEO of ESB Restaurant Technology, Gunawan Woen, affirmed.
Gunawan explained that ESB’s AI began integrating traditional AI solutions into its products before the GenAI boom in late 2022. Initially, its AI offered technical insights, but the user experience was less intuitive. With the advent of ChatGPT and the GenAI wave, ESB merged its AI technology with GenAI to develop OLIN, an in-app assistant. OLIN represented as an on-screen female colleague, allows F&B enterprises to obtain actionable insights by asking simple questions, eliminating the need for manual data analysis.
Using OLIN has led to significant revenue increases for F&B merchants, enhancing earnings and contributing to financial inclusion within Indonesia’s expanding economy. ESB also develops new credit scoring models to facilitate access to bank loans and working capital for numerous F&B microbusinesses previously deemed unbankable by traditional financial institutions.
“Our SaaS offerings form the core of our business, but our future revenue streams are set to expand with AI as a central driver. Our supply chain and procurement system has been successful since launch, and our end-customer ordering system simplifies transactions while providing valuable data on customer behavior.” CEO of ESB concluded.
ESB has previously seized a US$29 million Series B funding round led by Northstar Group and Alpha JWC Ventures. Several existing investors, including BEENEXT, Vulcan Capital, and AC Ventures, followed the round. Prior to this fundraising round, ESB raised a total of US$10.6 million in funding from Alpha JWC, Vulcan Capital, BEENEXT, AC Ventures, Skystar Capital, and Selera Kapital. With this fresh Series B funding, ESB aims to simplify payment solutions, provide working capital facilities, and expand productivity features to boost SME business sales.
