The recent closure of Jiva, a venture that reached over 200,000 farmers and created more than 600 jobs, marked the end of a chapter in agri-venture building in Southeast Asia. While some might view it as just another corporate experiment that didn’t succeed, doing so would overlook its contributions and the lessons it leaves behind.

In today’s environment of constant disruption, stepping back entirely from innovation carries its own risks. The real challenge for corporations is to make their innovation processes more efficient, effective, and resilient—so they can build new businesses that thrive in tomorrow’s markets.

Unlike VC-backed startups such as Crowde or even eFishery, Jiva was a bold corporate-led effort to reimagine how farmers in Southeast and South Asia could access services. It was endowed with resources and talent, an ambitious venture that ultimately cost its corporate sponsor more than US$100m over five years.

And even though it didn’t reach its full potential, Jiva leaves us with important lessons for the next wave of corporate venture building as well as hints of an answer to the question on the minds of every executive: how do we achieve more with less?

What Jiva revealed

Jiva was conceived in a different time: easy money, high-risk appetite, and a preference for growth over validation. As the funding climate shifted, the model came under strain and exposed some important realities:

• Big spending alone isn’t a shortcut. While resources matter, heavy upfront investment and reliance on consultancies can sometimes create distance from the market, making it harder to adapt. While at the same time reduces the ability of institutional investors to justify significant early spend without traction.
• Overhead must match the stage. Large teams and high-cost structures can put too much pressure on ventures that are still finding product-market fit. And, specifically for agriculture, they often miss the fact that real impact is done on the ground and not in an HQ in a country away.
• Subsidies aren’t a long-term solution. Farmers appreciated short-term benefits, but long-term traction only comes from solving real pain points. This is true in every industry, but especially with those dealing with cutthroat competition like agri distribution. In Southeast Asia, rice subsidy programs have shown limited sustainable impact on productivity, prompting calls for more enduring, market-based solutions.

Rather than being a failure, Jiva provided a live stress test for a certain approach to venture building—and showed why a new playbook is needed.

Also Read: The agritech challenge in Indonesia: Can AI and mobile apps enhance productivity?

What the next playbook looks like

If Jiva were launched today, it would likely look quite different. Corporates entering this space can take away some clear principles:

• Start lean, think like startups. Small bets, early proof, and traction as the real validation. A corporate startup should be able to leverage its corporate advantages and leverage it to be as cost-efficient as possible, rivalling a venture in the wild capital efficiency. Spending money in the early days should be around pilots and not decks.
• Choose partners who share the risk. Collaboration works best when incentives are aligned and everyone has skin in the game. Venture Builders partnering with corporations should offer more than slides, and be willing to invest in their work.
• Stay close to the ground. In agriculture, credibility comes from rolling up sleeves and working alongside farmers. More than 80 per cent of Southeast Asia’s farmers are smallholders, operating on less than two hectares. Reaching them requires hyper-local trust, which can’t be built from a distant HQ. Normally, high level personnel is used to managing a large team and not spending time on the ground. 
• Fund with discipline. Stage-gated capital, realistic milestones, and equity structures that drive accountability. PitchBook data shows corporate venture funding fell 35 per cent in 2023 as boards demanded tighter capital discipline. Stage-gated funding mirrors this new normal. Over spending without a view towards profit belongs to the previous era of VC (an era I hope does not come back again), and corporates especially can be more disciplined in how they manage a new business funding.
• Focus on solving pain points. Sustainable models don’t rely on subsidies; they rely on real value creation.

Also Read: Why agritech is the key to Asia’s food security

Why corporates still matter

Despite the challenges, corporations remain uniquely positioned to help tackle agriculture’s biggest issues. Their networks, balance sheets, and deep industry knowledge can give new ventures an edge that startups alone can’t achieve. But that edge only exists if it translates into faster, cheaper, and more effective execution than what a startup could do “in the wild.”

Jiva also showed how that edge can be dulled when overhead grows or distance from the market increases.

The opportunity now is to reset the model: build leaner, partner smarter, and focus relentlessly on genuine farmer impact.

Jiva should be remembered not only as an ending, but as a significant effort that provides valuable lessons for the next era of corporate venture building in agriculture.

Done right, corporations can still play a decisive role in creating ventures that deliver both returns and resilience for the region’s food systems. 

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