Jakarta, 6 June 2022 – Indonesia-based culinary startup Mangkokku announced today its recently closed Series A funding of USD 7 million co-led by Alpha JWC Ventures and EMTEK, with participation from Cakra Ventures.
Created by Indonesian renowned chef Arnold Poernomo and serial entrepreneurs Randy Kartadinata, Gibran Rakabuming, and Kaesang Pangarep, Mangkokku is a culinary startup that offers professional chef-level dishes in the form of rice bowls that are accessible to everyone. Aiming to become the go-to comfort food options, Mangkokku’s dishes are crafted with a local taste that is familiar to Indonesians, with high-quality ingredients, and top chef-level recipes, but always with a contemporary twist. Its top-selling menu includes Endog Burger Slice Mayo (egg mayo and burger rice bowl) and Beef Onion Onsen Egg rice bowl.
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Mangkokku received its seed funding in 2020 from Alpha JWC Ventures, and since then, the company has grown 6x in terms of sales and tripled its number of stores. The company currently operates 50 branches in the Greater Jakarta area, Surabaya, Bandung, Malang, Semarang, and Solo. With dozens of permanent and seasonal menus, Mangkokku serves more than 4 million bowls annually via its online and offline channels. Partnership has been one of Mangkokku’s market strategies, having launched more than a dozen collaboration menus in the past year with major brands and celebrity chefs, including MasterChef Indonesia judges and winner and Garena’s Free Fire game.
Post-pandemic move
Mangkokku has weathered the pandemic well, having been able to build a resilient business and grow with healthy economics during such a challenging time. Now, with the pandemic and its economic and social impact receding, Mangkokku is ready to welcome back its customers to dine-in restaurants. The company recently launched its first of many flagship outlets in the city center of Jakarta with a modern, cozy concept and special dine-in menu. The restaurant launch has been met with a warm welcome, with thousands of customers served and constant fully-booked situations within its first 4 weeks of opening. In the next months, Mangkokku will open more of its flagship restaurants while expanding its cloud kitchen to new areas and cities.
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However, although the company is focusing on expanding its offline presence this year, online deliveries still make up the majority of Mangkokku’s sales. To enhance the buying experience and improve customer engagement, Mangkokku is set to launch its own mobile application by Q3 2022. The app will feature not only order services and self-pick up but also loyalty programs and many special promos. In addition to that, Mangkokku also aims to reach its 100th outlet this year and open another 100 next year.
“We will strengthen both our online and offline presence through outlets to serve more customers, flagship dine-in restaurants with excellent customer experience, a new mobile application, and most importantly, new dine-in exclusive dishes to cater to all preferences. With those, we aim to be an all-rounder New Culinary Retail company,” says Co-Founder and CEO Randy Kartadinata. “Despite the pandemic and our fast pace, Mangkokku has maintained healthy economics and growth both in our online and offline presence, which is not an easy thing to achieve for F&B startups. With our disciplined and customer-obsessed strategy, attention to detail, and maintained operational excellence, Mangkokku will be a sustainable business in the long run.”
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Bringing local cuisines worldwide with Nusantara Culinary Group
Now that Mangkokku has found its product-market fit and built a strong following from its loyal customers, the company is ready to take the next step to achieve its big goal to become Indonesia’s largest F&B group targeted to the mass market and build its own ecosystem of multiple brands and culinary institutions. From there, the group will take on the world.
“Ricebowl is our starting point and now we are ready to take the next step forward. We are launching our holding company, Nusantara Culinary Group, to bring more delicacies from our kitchen. We start with beverages and packaged sambal and will roll out other types of dishes this year onwards to become an end-to-end culinary solution for our customers,” Randy added.
“Our cuisine is very rich and I believe everyone should have the chance to taste and enjoy it. We’re on a mission to spread Indonesian delicacies across borders through limitless explorations of F&B brands. The dream is for Nusantara to make Indonesian food a staple worldwide.”
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“Mangkokku has continued to achieve new, exciting milestones since our initial investment a year ago. Mangkokku’s strong fundamentals of continuous R&D and innovation enable regular launch of new products: contemporary, unique Indonesian dishes with top chef-standard quality, consistently in every dish. We are excited to continue this partnership with Randy and his team and look forward to their next evolution onward,” says Jefrey Joe, Co-Founder and General Partner at Alpha JWC Ventures.
