ESB, Indonesia’s answer to the US-based Toast, has raised $7.6 million in a Series A+ funding round led by Alpha JWC Ventures with participation from BEENEXT, Vulcan Capital, AC Ventures, and Skystar Capital.
The company provides fully-integrated software designed for restaurants, cloud kitchens, or food stalls.
ESB plans to use the funding to introduce new products within its ecosystem, that connect the restaurant’s front-, back-end, consumers, and supply chain partners all in one operations software.
“We strive to alleviate the headache of dealing with separate platforms to meet the needs of these different aspects,” Gunawan Woen, ESB co-founder and chief executive, said in a statement.
While most players in the F&B businesses were badly hurt by the pandemic-induced mobility restriction, ESB has been doing well, Woen said. “We project within the next year, we will grow three to five times bigger than the currency size,” Woen said in a separate text.
Eko Kurniadi, a partner at Alpha JWC Ventures who led the current funding, said ESB can “play a pivotal role” in the digital transformation of the space.
F&B businesses were pushed to make their operation leaner while finding new avenues for sales. This, according to ESB, leads restaurants and suppliers to demand ESB’s service for digitalisation.
The company now processed over $500 million in gross transaction value and it expects to grow ten-fold in the next two years.
“ESB’s technology platform has delivered a unique cloud-based end-to-end F&B solution to help restaurants reduce costs, manage their operations, and scale online delivery. Their platform is set to revolutionise the multi-billion-dollar dine-in and takeaway market for Indonesia,” Adrian Li, AC Ventures founder and managing partner, said.
The fresh funding came just months after ESB secured a $3 million Series A funding led by BEENEXT in March.
The round also involved AC Ventures, Skystar Capital, and Selera Kapital. Both series totalling $10.6 million.
Jakarta-based venture capital firm Alpha JWC recently secured the first close for its third fund at $300 million, DealStreetAsia reported in September.
The VC was also recently reported joining Indonesian fintech startup Ajaib’s latest funding round to raise $153 million, taking the company’s valuation to the $1 billion mark.
This article is originally posted on DealStreetAsia. Read the original article here.
