Food Market Hub co-founders Anthony See and Shayna Teh
Food Market Hub (FMH), a food and beverages (F&B) procurement and inventory management startup in Malaysia, announced today it has received US$4 million in Series A financing.
The round was co-led by Go-Ventures (a VC fund with gojek being its cornerstone investor) and SIG.
As per a press note, FMH plans to use the funds to strengthen its presence in its home country, as well as to expand into Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.
FMH was founded in 2017 Anthony See and Shayna Teh, former cafe owners, who realised that increasing food costs were a problem within the F&B industry. This led to the creation of the startup that helps F&B operators manage and track procurement and inventory.
The platform automates purchasing and inventory-tracking by connecting outlets with their central kitchens and suppliers.
It also leverages on Artificial Intelligence technology to analyse past data to forecast future purchasing needs, resulting in optimised inventory control to further reduce costs.
Currently, the venture supports over 2,000 F&B outlets across Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan, it said further claiming that it processes close to US$200 million in purchase orders on an annual basis.
“A single restaurant may need to process some 200 purchase orders every month. Previously, most of this was done manually, making it tedious as well as prone to human error,” said See.
“And when a restaurant grows or becomes a franchise using a central kitchen, complexity increases exponentially. Having run F&B outlets previously, I know the pain points involved and we set up Food Market Hub to address this problem,” he remarked.
Also Read: 6 common roadblocks F&B businesses face in the digital era
“Technology has the ability to revolutionise the F&B sector, which has been badly hit by the pandemic,” said Nigel Quah, Investment Professional at Go-Ventures. “The FMH team has the deep industry expertise and has demonstrated that the F&B industry can benefit greatly from AI, analytical technology and automation.”
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Image Credit: Food Market Hub
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