The Secai Marche team
Secai Marche, a Japan-headquartered company that connects farmers directly with restaurants and retailers in Southeast Asia, has received JPY300 million (US$2.1 million) to bring the total funding raised towards the Series A round to US$3.5 million.
The investors include Beyond Next Ventures, Spiral Ventures Asia, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, Future Food Fund, Tsuneishi Shoji, Fukuoka Sonoriku, and Foodison co-CEO Toru Yamamoto.
The new tranche follows a US$1.6 million raise in January 2023 from The Agribusiness Investment & Consultation, Spiral Ventures Asia Fund I, and Beyond Next Ventures.
Also Read: How Secai Marche champions farm-fresh food in Southeast Asia
“In response to the rapid growth of the restaurant industry in Southeast Asia and the increasing demand for high-quality, cost-competitive services in Malaysia and Singapore, we will use the funds to expand our fulfilment centres, enhance the accuracy of demand forecasts using AI, and automate and optimise the last-mile deliveries,” Secai Marche co-founder and CEO Ami Sugiyama told e27.
“We also plan to allocate the funds for system development and marketing activities. This fundraising will serve as a starting point for rapidly expanding our market share in Southeast Asia,” she added.
Established in 2019 by Sugiyama and Shusaku Hayakawa, Secai Marche offers a platform for F&B businesses and retailers to purchase high-quality products directly from farmers and fishermen at competitive prices.
The online grocery platform sources over 4,000 items (fresh vegetables, fruit, eggs, and chilled seafood, etc.) directly from farmers in Southeast Asia and Japan. It has partnered with over 1,300 retailers and HORECA customers since its inception.
The startup claims to have achieved 200 per cent growth each year.
The Southeast Asian e-commerce market is projected to exceed US$240 billion by 2025. However, e-commerce has lagged in the fresh food sector due to underdeveloped refrigerated logistics networks (such as cold chains from producers to consumers and small-scale collection and delivery functions).
Since the COVID-19 outbreak, there have been more cases of producers selling directly to consumers via e-commerce, but this has been limited to those with their own refrigerated logistics capabilities.
“By providing a consistent fulfilment service with Japanese quality to many small and medium-sized businesses and producers having no refrigerated logistics capabilities, we are rapidly advancing the e-commerce of fresh food in Southeast Asia,” added Sugiyama.
Also Read: Malaysian B2B farm-to-table fulfilment platform Secai Marche bags US$1.6M in Series A
Fukuoka Sonoriku’s Executive VP, Yusuke Sonoda, said: “Secai Marche is a rapidly growing company that meets the needs of the times by providing a new supply chain in Southeast Asia, where refrigerated logistics networks are underdeveloped. We decided to invest in the company because their service will improve the entire food and agriculture industry by improving the ecosystem. Secai Marche’s end-to-end fulfillment service and Fukuoka Sonoriku’s logistic technologies and skills and agricultural production networks will lead to further development in Thailand and more in the future.”
Foodison CEO Toru Yamamoto said: “We expect that Secai Marche’s innovative approach with the Japanese quality and deep market knowledge will contribute significantly not only to Japanese fresh produce but also to building infrastructure for product distribution in Southeast Asia, particularly Malaysia.”
In 2021, the agritech firm raised US$1.5 million in a pre-Series A funding round from Japanese VC firms Rakuten Ventures and Beyond Next Ventures.
The post ‘Amazon for fresh farm produce in SEA’ Secai Marche raises US$3.5M to add AI feature, optimise last-mile deliveries appeared first on e27.