Heaptalk, Jakarta — An Agritech startup, AgriAku, has obtained its new investment worth USD35 million in a Series A funding round (7/11). The AgriAku team will manage this new fund to empower million of local farmers and amplify its market penetration for the Farm Shops and its distributor networks.
This Series A funding round was led by Alpha JWC Ventures and supported by AgriAku’s existing investors, namely MDI Ventures (ARISE, Centauri, and MDI Growth) and Go-Ventures. This round also was followed by the leading State-owned Enterprises (SOE) in Indonesia, spanning the BRI Ventures and Mandiri Capital.
Furthermore, the Gentree Fund, K3 Ventures, and public company Thai Wah involved in this investment as AgriAku’s new strategic investors to bolster the team in expanding the business reach globally. Other Venture Capital participates in this round, including Alto Partners, InnoVen Capital, and Mercy Corps Venture Fund.
Responding to this investment, Co-Founder and CEO of AgriAku, Danny Handoko, uttered, “We focus on resolving our customers’ issue and augment the market value around the agricultural sector in Indonesia. By earning this new capital, we will focus on the fundamental monetization, essential ideas, execution, and distribution activities.”
Revolutionizing the agribusiness sector in Indonesia
The agricultural sector has contributed 13.7% to Indonesia’s GDP (FY 2020). However, the upstream agriculture sector in Indonesia is highly fragmented, with disorganized value chains.
“The fragmented agriculture around the upstream sector has delivered the obstacles for farmers, suppliers, and distributors to gain their necessities punctually, affecting the unstable price and supply. Apart from these issues, they also encounter inefficiency in manual labor, inadequate logistics services, and limited funding access.” Irvan Kolonas, Co-Founder and President of AgriAku, said.
Established by Irvan Kolonas and Danny Handoko in May 2021, this agri-tech company intends to boost the farmer’s productivity and income through technological support. Moreover, Agriku has grown its presence in over 500 cities around Java, Sumatra, and Sulawesi. With its accomplishment, the company will continue to expand its technology innovation and increase its Farm Shop networks and distributors.
The AgriAku will also emphasize economy unit optimization and enhance its revenue by offering logistic services, distributors, and producer financing to bolster their operation improvement through AgriAku’s platform. With this fresh injection, the team will also plan to expand the business unit for its agriculture products.
The partner of Alpha JWC Ventures, Eko Kuriniadi, uttered, “Agricultural industry is one of sectors that provides biggest contribution to Indonesia’s economy. The presence of AgriAku is expected to empower the Farm Shops by securing the farming tools supplier with transparency expense, expanding their supplier network, and investing in their business development. We believe this startup can revolutionize the agricultural landscape in Indonesia,”
Also, the Partner of Go-Ventures, Aditya Kamath, claimed this Indonesia-based agritech company had performed an outstanding accomplishment in digitizing the agriculture market. He also stated that his party would continue to support the industry players in raising the productivity of Indonesia’s agriculture.
Regardless of the new investment announcement, AgriAku company welcomes two new figures to the leadership team. One of the new team is Abraham Soedjito – Chief Strategy Officer of AgriAku. Before joining this company, Abraham served as Chief Product Officer of Financial Services at Traveloka in Thailand.
This startup also introduced Valmik Mirani as Chief Commercial Officer of AgriAku. Previously, Valmik was Assistant Vice President of Paytm – India’s leading digital payments and financial services company, and Vice President of Marketplace Strategy Office at Tokopedia. The new talented CCO is believed to reinforce the technology solutions and operation performance of AgriAku. (SFM)
