JAKARTA, 1 August 2023 – Beleaf Farms (Beleaf) today announced their USD 6.85 million Series A investment led by Alpha JWC Ventures. Beleaf is a comprehensive agritech business with a core focus on Farming-as-a-Service (FaaS.) It is aiming to enhance the yields and productivity of local farmers across Indonesia, and ultimately improve their livelihoods. This round represents a doubling down for the venture capital firm, following their late 2022 involvement in Beleaf’s USD 2.2 million raise. Additional investors participating in this round include Openspace and several strategic angels.
“Since Alpha JWC’s first investment less than one year ago, Beleaf has consistently shown extraordinary progress as one of the leading AgriTech companies in Indonesia. Their end-to-end offering empowers farmers to achieve higher productivity and produce quality, resulting in better economics and farming experience. As Beleaf continues to surpass their growth and profitability milestones, we firmly believe in their potential to revolutionize the agriculture sector in the long run,” said Eko Kurniadi, Partner of Investment at Alpha JWC Ventures. “We are thrilled to reaffirm our unwavering support to Amrit and his team through this Series A funding. We look forward to witnessing Beleaf’s continued growth and positive impact that they will create in Indonesia and beyond.”
Beleaf was founded by Amrit Lakhiani in 2019 as a high-quality, high-margin hydroponic brand, focusing on leafy greens. It later expanded its offerings to encompass various products, including those grown through open field farming. Beleaf’s produce is now sold domestically as well as for export. It is currently available in 4 countries including Singapore, with the aim of entering another 6 countries by the end of 2024. Beleaf is also available in over 180 retail outlets in Greater Jakarta, 8 online channels, and a range of restaurants.
Leveraging experiences to develop Farming-as-a-Service
It was the experience of managing their own farms that led Beleaf to launch its Farming-as-a-Service program in 2022, initially engaging farmers in Puncak and Bandung with their technology-enabled farm management. FaaS is already fast solving several urgent challenges in the sector. Despite being an agricultural country, Indonesia’s potential remains unoptimized and its reliance on agricultural import remains high.
“We quickly realized that instead of building more of our own farms, we were sitting on something more broadly applicable and powerful. We could use our expertise and the technology we had created to bring the same advantage to existing farmers, and increase the collective quality and productivity of an Indonesian agricultural industry facing several developmental hurdles, all whilst showcasing the best local products to foreign markets via export,” said Amrit Lakhiani.
The archipelago has the fertile grounds, plentiful water, and differing environments necessary to effectively grow a large variety of fruits and vegetables but has, traditionally, been constrained by the heavily fragmented farming community. It is made of 70% small hold farmers who lack access to the requisite financing, insurance, technology, efficient logistics, and direct access to markets. Beleaf’s FaaS program puts it in a unique position to solve these problems and help realize Indonesia’s latent agricultural potential.
Powered by big data and IoT to enable localized precision farming, Beleaf aims to offer end-to-end services as a complete FaaS product: across inputs, farm technology, agronomy support, and offtaking – connecting farms, agronomists, and retailers in one integrated ecosystem. In doing so, it is enabling farmers to improve their productivity, quality, and profitability. As of today, the business’ focus is on controlling and improving the yield of partner farms, with current improvements of up to 15% increased yield. Their proprietary platform monitors weather, seeding, planting activities, nutrition dosing, farm planning, and harvesting. All data gathered from these processes will then power its machine learning for the continuous improvement of their farms, as well as research and development of future agri-solutions.
Beleaf builds on this by using its post harvest facilities to consolidate volumes and create a consistent, high quality product that can be exported to its network of international clients. With this foundation, Beleaf is on track to becoming a category leader in exporting leafy greens and root vegetables such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, ginger and carrots.
Building on rapid expansion to increase coverage and accelerate efficiencies
Investors recognize the speed at which Beleaf has expanded its business operations. With a current network of 145 farmers, the business aims to empower at least 2,000 farmers by the end of 2024. The FaaS program has already yielded promising results, increasing the yield and income of many farmers, as evidenced by the successful distribution of 700 tons of produce in May 2023. Building on this early success, Beleaf is aiming to solidify its presence in the major farming areas across the country, whilst developing a strong commercial presence and brand in Indonesia and neighboring countries.
This latest Series A funding will further facilitate this ambition, enabling it to expand its farming network to several new areas including Bali, Medan and Lembang. It will set up R&D farms in those locations as the base to launch its FaaS network across the country. In addition, the funding will be used to double down on its supply chain and commercial divisions to improve operating efficiency, and expand its sales footprint to new countries. Beleaf will also continue to push forward in developing its IoT devices and Beleaf OS to further enable its FaaS services and improve farmer yields.
“At Openspace, we’ve assessed a vast number of agritech startups, and Beleaf’s early progress really stands out from the pack. The full-stack approach on select crops allows them to achieve rapid growth, especially given they achieve the best-in-category margins. Amrit and the team have already shown an unwavering commitment to sustainable growth, while aiding farmers and delivering produce that’s delighting consumers across the region. We’re confident in their execution, and excited to partner with them more as they push forward”, said Ian Sikora, Executive Director, Openspace.
