Jaring Pangan Receives Pre-Series A Funding from Gayo Capital, Will Realize Commodity Tokens in 2024

Food web commodity supply chain startups (Japan) received a pre-series A funding of $11,5 million or 175 billion Rupiah from Gayo Capital. JaPang will strengthen commodity supply in the upstream sector (upstream) as a key strategy towards commodity token development (commodity tokens) in 2024.

DailySocial.id opportunity to chat exclusively with JaPang; Co-founders Tjong Benny and Edison Tobing, Executive Chairman Ivan Arie Sustiawan, and Gayo Capital; Co-founder and Managing Partner Ishara Yusdian and Investment Principal Eldo Wana Kusuma.

Ishara said that Gayo Capital has an investment commitment of $11,5 million by combining: debt financing and equity. The investment will be disbursed in stages where the main focus of the first year is to strengthen the scope of commodity supply in Java.

This is to strengthen the position of JaPang and partners in the upstream sector in building and controlling around 10% of the volume of commodity transactions in the relevant region through collaboration and/or acquisition of partners in the upstream sector. This strategy will strengthen underlying from the commodity token later.

Previously at the end of 2021, JaPang had received an injection initial investment (seed) worth $500 thousand which is a combination of the founders and a number of angel investors.

“We have three layers risk assessment to determine whether a startup can grow, achieve profitability, and have exit path. We start from debt financing, for example, the first three months must be completed zero NPLs. This is important to ensure investments can be turned into GMV, opex and more. "Then it is played again in the following month for the next 12-18 months," said Ishara.

In addition to strengthening 10% control supply chain leaders In the targeted areas, he hopes for business growth from partners downstream (JaPang Warung Rakyat/JAWARA and Juragan) were also achieved. "We believe Japan can have it confidence level "more in depth, the debut of commodity token offerings with strategic partners is planned if the KPI strategy is met," he added.

In this funding, Ishara Yusdian also served as a Strategic Advisor at JaPang. With his experience as a serial investor and corporate venture builder in North America, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand, he will help strengthen JaPang's business and operational model until it is ready for Sustainable Web3.

Meanwhile, Tjong Benny said that his party is focused on digitalizing the agricultural and livestock sectors to be in line with its vision of maintaining food supplies in Indonesia. There are two market segments being targeted, namely B2B and B2B2C to empower MSME players with the main products of rice, meat and chicken.

This product was chosen considering its large market potential, namely the potential for national rice consumption to reach $22 billion in 2020, while national meat and chicken consumption reached $6,3 billion. Japan also provides other basic food ingredients, namely eggs, sugar and salt.

“Initially, we started with B2B through strategy private-label to enter the market. Of course traction B2B is big, but not evenly distributed yet sustainable. However, we see that the community's needs are very large. We are moving to B2B2C to reach more user. "For the scale of the Indonesian market, this segment is less touched," he explained.

Control 10% share

Currently, JaPang only covers around 2%-3% of supply demand in Jabodetabek and Surabaya, which is also fulfilled by the B2B2C line JaPang Warung Rakyat (JAWARA). According to Ishara, with the number of RMU partners it currently has, Japan can potentially meet 10% of demand commodity trading in the region.

"If calculated in the next 1-3 years, Japan could be a reference index pricing based on transactions that occur. Therefore, we want JaPang commits with strategic partners that can reach players upstream. It's hard to control 10% [share] commodity trading if you don't partner with the perpetrator upstream," he continued.

Ivan Arie Sustiawan added that JaPang will increase the number sourcing their supply to ensure availability supply and demand can be fulfilled accordingly The roadmap. JaPang has now collaborated with 10 rice milling unit (RMU), 3 chicken stake houses, and 2 egg cages.

Apart from that, JaPang will also cooperate with commodity guarantors (off taker) for the long term, both from BUMN and the private sector. In the rice commodity, for example, rice milling production by RMU partners is only for JaPang. The additional number of RMUs will also depend on milestone JaPang forward.

"JaPang is not only aiming to be a leader in the market commodity trading, but also be Market makers. Why strengthen the side upstream? Anyone who can lock supply in upstream, can be market makers. That's what we do, whether it's rice, chicken or eggs. "Hopefully we can create price stability and guaranteed availability," he said.

JaPang commodity token

JaPang's efforts to strengthen supply from the upstream sector in the next two years is a strategic step to realize the development of commodity tokens (commodity tokens) in 2024. Submission license to Bappebti and the launch of this token is also carried out in stages while following developments in related regulations.

According to Japan, commodity tokens actually have underlying operations real compared to crypto assets, such as Bitcoin or Ethereum. In this case, JaPang focuses on the supply chain of basic commodities as underlying. This token can be a way for people who do not have access to financial services to seek business capital.

"We hope to be the first [to launch commodity tokens in Indonesia] because we already have the concept and criteria. Staple foods will be one of the main factors we create tokenomic. If realized, this could be game changer di staple foods. We no longer talk social commerce or Grocery because the price will depend on commodity tokens that," added Ivan.

Commodity tokens are nothing new. In 2017, there was a fundraising project called Bananacoin (BCO) which was initiated by Russian developers for banana plantations in Vientiane province, Laos. Referring to a number of sources, the BCO price was set at $0,50 at the Initial Coin Offering (ICO). To ensure BCO is valuable, each token refers to the price of one kilogram of bananas on the market.

"Before entering the tokenomic, we have to achieve several things, including the 10% target. The closer we get there, this would be the strength in that proposal underlying we can do it Represent commodity supply chain leaders, so that we--not determining the price--participate in index pricing itself. This will make stablecoin can be-exchange," said Edison Tobing.

Sustainable Web3

Furthermore, Ishara said that since the last year Gayo Capital is currently exploring business potential, especially agritech, which can be brought to the Web3 level. It began to change its investment thesis where the main focus remained on the sector impact. However, his party limits startup investment in the upstream sector whose model is still traditional.

"At Gayo Capital, we will still focus on our part which is impact. However, we wanted to see which portfolios had a common thread for us embark to Web3. That's why our new investment thesis we name it Sustainable Web3," he said.

According to him, JaPang is ready to move forward sustainable Web3 because it has a good business model and plays in the commodity supply chain that many Indonesians consume. Have rice, chicken and eggs trading cycles which is very high or can reach four times the turnover in the market per week, per month, or per year.

Meanwhile, Eldo Wana Kusuma adding that this initiative is a big step to encourage agricultural transparency in Indonesia. Moreover, his party has seen a number of challenges experienced by agricultural actors in the field, one of which is price gouging on farmers' crops by third parties.

"We saw [commodity tokens] this as sustainable tokens, not one that can be 'fried' at will. Commodity tokens will not replace P2P functions or financial inclusion services. The idea is to [encourage] commodity price transparency. Rice tokens, for example, will always be updated according to world market prices. Real time' he closed.