By Lynda Kiernan
Leading Indonesian agtech company TaniHub announced it has secured an additional $17 million in funding through a Series A extension co-led by Openspace Ventures and Intudo Ventures. Also participating in this round were UOB Venture Management, Vertex Ventures, BRI Ventures, Tenaya Capital, and Golden Gate Ventures.
This funding brings total capital raised by the company since its founding in 2016 to $29 million, following a $10 million Series A announced in May 2019 led by Openspace, and included Intudo Ventures, Golden Gate Ventures, and the DFS Lab – an accelerator backed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Previously, the startup had raised Seed capital from Alpha JWC Ventures and angel investors.
Founded in mid-2016 by World Bank analyst Eka Pamitra and five friends, TaniHub operates a business of three platforms:
~ TaniHub – an online food marketplace, where consumers can buy direct from farmers
~ TaniFund – a peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform offering legal alternative financing to farmers that has lent more than $6 million to-date.
~ And TaniSupply – offering supply chain services.
“The revitalization of farmers is crucial to Indonesia’s agriculture sector, which represents one of the most significant contributors to the country’s economy,” said Pamitra Wineka, president and co-founder, TaniHub Group.
“Farmers need to improve their productivity and income as those are important factors to ensure young generations that the agriculture sector offers bright prospects. Our ecosystem of TaniHub Group is designed to help farmers achieve those dreams, and consumers can enjoy agriculture products at fair prices. This will enable ‘Agriculture for Everyone,’ which is our ultimate goal.”
Over the past year, the company saw growth triple year-on-year, with more than 30,000 farmers joining its ecosystem. Today, TaniHub has five regional distribution hubs in Bogor, West Java, Bandung, West Java, Yogyakarta Surabaya, East Java, and Denpasar, in Bali.
Through its broad supplier network and seamless distribution system, the company is connecting farmers with 5,000 business customers, and 115,000 retail customers. These farmers who are connected through the TaniHub platform have recorded a 20 percent increase in income, while those that also engage with TaniFund have posted additional income of 50 percent.
“TaniHub focuses on building infrastructure and supply chain, addressing some of the largest challenges in the agriculture sector,” said Ivan Arie Sustiawan, CEO, and co-founder, TaniHub Group. “We are committed to strengthening our B2B partnerships, including small and medium businesses.”
With this additional capital, TaniHub intends to reinforce its position as a market leader, and to accelerate the expansion of its services as well as its geographic reach for farmers and customers, with the goal of serving 100,000 farmers by 2021. It also will commit funds to operational improvements, including new automation solutions in its new processing and packing facility.
“We expect more robust growth for this year, and hope we can reach all cities throughout the country by 2022,” said Sustiawan.
To achieve this nationwide presence, plans are in the company’s pipeline to roll out three new hubs, and to bring its new automated packing and processing center online in Malang, East Java.
“We strongly believe that TaniHub has the best solution and business model to empower and help the farmers and their customers, especially the SME retailers, to get fair prices,” said Chua Joo Hock, managing partner of VVSEA fund. “Its end-to-end platform gives it the ability to offer best quality and best pricing. We are happy to participate in this new financing round and look forward to working closely together with Eka (Pamitra), Ivan and the TaniHub team to build Indonesia’s champion in agritech.”
– Lynda Kiernan is Editor with GAI Media and daily contributor to the GAI News and Agtech Intel platforms. If you would like to submit a contribution for consideration, please contact Ms. Kiernan at lkiernan@globalaginvesting.
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