Indonesia-based quick commerce startup Bananas announced that it has secured US$1.5 million in a seed funding round led by East Ventures.
SMDV, ARISE, MDI Ventures, and unnamed angels also co-invested.
Silicon Valley-based accelerator Y Combinator also invested US$500,000 in Bananas’s seed round as the company got accepted to its Winter 2022 batch.
Banana will use the funds to hire people to support its operations in product development, inventory, customer services, and dark stores (micro-hubs located near high-density residential neighbourhoods to deliver ordered groceries close to being instant).
Bananas aims to reach at least 50 dark stores in Jakarta and other tier-1 cities in Indonesia shortly.
Also read: Looking abroad: Capturing the e-commerce opportunity in SEA
Bananas was founded in late 2021 by CTO Kristian Sinaulan and CEO Mario Gaw, who both served as Lazada Indonesia’s early employees. Gaw also has extensive experience in the e-commerce sector with his C-level positions at companies such as instant rewards mobile app platform Cashbac and online travel company Tiket.com, to name a few.
The startup focuses on Indonesia’s untapped grocery market by providing items such as fresh fruits and vegetables in minutes and at retail prices.
Thanks to Bananas’s tech-enabled micro-hubs, customers can shop for the desired grocery item, pay, and expect the delivery to be completed within 10 minutes on average through the Bananas mobile application, the startup claims.
“Bananas was established during the pandemic era when we realised the needs of customers of top quality grocery items, speed, and convenience during these difficult times,” said Gaw. “[The funding] will accelerate our mission to revolutionise the grocery shopping experience in the market.”
According to consulting company Redseer, online shoppers in Indonesia surged from 75 million pre-Covid-19 to 85 million people during the pandemic.
With a population of 270 million, Indonesia has one of the biggest grocery markets in Asia, together with China, India, and Japan. The archipelago’s grocery market value is expected to reach US$169.4 billion in 2022, up from US$140.2 billion in 2019, according to a report by the Institute of Grocery Distribution.
A few days ago, Astro, an on-demand quick e-commerce platform for groceries and other daily essentials in Indonesia, also secured US$27 million in Series A financing led by Accel Partners and Sequoia Capital India.
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Image Credit: Bananas
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