Eden Farm Closes US$19 Million Series A Financing from AppWorks and AC Ventures to Scale-up Indonesia’s Food Ecosystem
Published on November 26, 2021
Eden Farm, a rapidly-growing agritech company revolutionizing Indonesia’s food ecosystem, today announced the completion of a US$19 million Series A round of financing co-led by AppWorks and AC Ventures, with participation from Trihill Capital, OCBC Ventures, Investible, Corin Capital, and existing investors, Global Founders Capital.
With the mission of ‘Feeding the Nation’, since 2017, Eden Farm has built an advanced food distribution network.
The company simplifies the supply chain to improve margins by reducing prices and cutting out middlemen, providing accurate demand forecasts for farmers by implementing digital acceleration and achieving production predictability.
Taken together, Eden Farm is able to better meet customer needs with higher quality products and lower prices, while putting more money in the pockets of farmers. Leveraging demand consistency and predictability, through Eden Farm, farmers’ income has increased by over 200%, while reducing food costs for customers by 30%.
Eden Farm has demonstrated strong operational moats by sourcing products directly from farmers, creating defensibility in upstream agritech and growth traction through diversified demand channels. Focusing on the B2B market, Eden Farm supplies high-quality food ingredients to HORECA, wet markets, traditional culinary, and eCommerce.
The company now serves more than 53,000 customers by working with over 2,000 farmers across Java, equipped with five fulfillment centers. As of September 2021, Eden Farm is supported by 400 key partners to ensure reliable product supply.
The team is led by co-founders David Setyadi Gunawan (CEO), Ramavito Mountaino (CFO), and Febrianto Gamal (COO), MBA classmates, and seasoned entrepreneurs who co-founded companies in the logistics and consumer space.
Built off the team’s strong entrepreneurial and operational expertise, as well as significant time on the ground, the Eden Farm team has cultivated great empathy, insight, and passion for Indonesia’s agriculture space.
“By the end of 2022, we plan to expand to 25 cities and 8 regencies, supplying more than 100,000 customers with 100% fulfillment rate of more than 1,000 SKUs, to finance and generate demand,” said David Setyadi Gunawan, Founder & CEO of Eden Farm. “In addition, we are securing a higher volume of strategic products through Eden Community Center (ECC), which enables us to penetrate the B2B market more aggressively all the way to the central market. In parallel, we strive to optimize the food ecosystem for both farmers and culinary businesses, through supply chain infrastructure development, market expansion, tech acceleration, and hiring new talent and building human capital.”
“The Eden Farm team has demonstrated resilience, operational expertise, strong empathy for farmers and customers, and incredible knowledge about the agritech space, bringing new life into one of humankind’s oldest industries. The team has proven that they are coachable and have laid out a powerful vision for the future of agriculture in Indonesia,” said Jamie Lin, Chairman & Founding Partner, AppWorks. “We’re excited for Eden Farm’s journey ahead and are incredibly excited to help support the team in making an even bigger impact in Indonesia’s agricultural sector.”
“Eden Farm is focusing on revolutionizing the supply chain for fresh produce and creating powerful defensibility in the upstream agri-tech space. As early investors in Eden Farm, we have seen the company grow and achieve all its milestones as they scaled demand channels and built stronger relationships with farmers on the ground. We continue to support Eden Farm as they further lead this industry into digitization and become a leader in the B2B agri-tech space”, said Adrian Li, Founder & Managing Partner of AC Ventures.
According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, Indonesia is home to 33.4 million farmers, with the agriculture sector contributing 14% of Indonesia’s GDP or US$140 billion in market size, growing at 12.93% QoQ. With the agriculture sector being heavily fragmented with inefficient supply chains, farmers’ income is limited with significant margin leakage throughout the value chain. Additionally, F&B is a US$92 billion market, with mom-and-pop stores contributing to US$63 billion in market size. The food sector is expected to grow at a CAGR of 8.7%.
