FoodMap, an agritech e-commerce platform connecting farmers and food producers directly to B2C and B2B customers, has raised an oversubscribed pre-Series A round of US$3 million, co-led by Vulpes Ventures and Beenext.
Ascend Vietnam Ventures and existing investor Wavemaker Partners joined the round.
Despite recent giant growth leaps in the manufacturing and technology spaces, Vietnam largely remains an agricultural country, with about 20 per cent of the population working in agriculture and related areas. However, there exist some critical pain points — multiple middle-men layers leading to 6-7x mark-up prices for end-users and lack of quality control in food production leading to low exporting prices and lack of consumers’ trust.
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FoodMap addresses these pain points using technology.
Launched in 2020 by Pham Ngoc Anh Tung, FoodMap aims to solve the gap between demand and supply across the invisible supply chain with a back-end management system for farmers and suppliers.
“FoodMap wants to help both sides of the equation by optimising the production process, raising the value of Vietnamese food products, and increasing visibility across the supply chain to strengthen customers’ trust. We currently focus on fresh products, seafood, selected meats, ready-to-cook and non-perishable products”, Tung shared.
Currently, FoodMap supplies products from over 300 farmers and producers to Vietnam. It enables customers to access FoodMap’s product via an e-commerce platform and mobile app. All products listed on FoodMap come with a QR code.
For farmers, FoodMap increases their income by roughly 10-20 per cent for their raw products while reducing inefficient mark-ups across multiple layers of intermediaries. In addition, it provides them with insights and analytics for future harvest planning.
As for suppliers, it brings their brand and story to the online audience and starts digitising sales. For example, for some long-standing brands, FoodMap has started generating up to 50 per cent of their total sales volume. On the other hand, it offers quality control and product discovery for customers.
“One thing that sets FoodMap apart from other foodtech players is our deep understanding of consumers’ taste and building products accordingly for their private label offerings. This helps generate high margin, brand loyalty, and exclusivity as competitive advantages,” added Tung.
FoodMap currently has five private label products — tea & coffee, fruits, ready-to-cook, chocolate, and seafood, which generate the bulk of Foodmap’s topline and margin.
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The firm currently operates from its two warehouses in Ho Chi Minh city with cold storage. For deliveries, most products are delivered within 24 hours to ensure customer satisfaction.
FoodMap plans to increase its B2B presence with growing demand from both modern trade and general trade outlets.
On the B2C side, FoodMap recently launched a group buying affiliate program to enable social selling among its customers.
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Image Credit: FoodMap
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