During the pandemic, there is a greater awareness among the public on the importance of nutrition, especially when it comes to building a proper immune system. Noticing this trend, Widya Surya Prayoga, Rudwiky Okta Putra, and Topaz Kumoro became inspired to start Tunas Farm, an Indonesian startup that integrates urban farming with technology.

Tunas Farm started off by building an indoor farming production facility in Gading Serpong, Banten province, using the hydroponic method. The startup caters the B2C segment by implementing the farm-to-table concept that enables customers to enjoy the vegetables that they just farm themselves; their operations are also supported by their in-house logistics team.

Recently, in order to launch its business, Tunas Farm raises an undisclosed pre-seed funding round from Gayo Capital. The funding is meant to develop its IoT-based hydroponic farming system.

The Tunas Farm team is currently preparing its facility in Garding Serpong to become a production facility and an indoor display of vertical farming, which is scheduled to be completed in the near future. They are also set to build a similar facility in other areas and to provide training for home-based hydroponic farming.

In future, Prayoga also stated that Tunas Farm is set to launch an IoT-based hydroponic kit that will enable customers to start their own urban farm at home.

Also Read: Startup of the Month, October: Bangkok-based agritech startup Freshket

The rise of agritech startups in Indonesia

While agritech business is often said to have great potentials in Indonesia, by far there has not been that many startups in the country that aims to significantly improve the farming process itself. There are many technologies that can be used to maximise this process, from IoT, big data, machine learning, to computer vision. This is especially relevant as there remain many challenges in the agriculture sector, from production to distribution.

One of the most popular agriculture verticals among tech startups is supply chain –the ability to enable business and individual customers to access fresh produce straight from the farmers. This approach also enables farmers to a fairer price for their works. Apart from that, there are also solutions that aim to help farmers finance their operations.

More and more startups in Indonesia have begun offering tech solutions to support production. A great number of these solutions are still in the research and development stage, as commonly found in various incubators, competition, or hackathon, but some of them have started manufacturing process. In addition to Tunas Farm, there is also Mertani, Tanibox, and Neurafarm.

Mertani provides IoT and big data solutions to help farmers monitor their farms on a much larger scale.

Meanwhile, Neurafarm builds an artificial intelligence solution called Dr Tania. It helps farmers to identify different types of plants disease based on the photo that they upload to the platform.

In an even smaller scale, Tanibox presents sensor-based equipment to help customers build a small farm at home.

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This article was written by Randi Eka Yonida in Bahasa Indonesia for DailySocial. English translation and editing by e27.

Image Credit: Tunas Farm

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