Esensi Solusi Buana Receives Series B Funding of 420 Billion Rupiah; Enter the Centaur Range [UPDATED]

*Update 29/8 at 19.30: we added information on the ESB valuation range

SaaS culinary business startup Esensi Solusi Buana (ESB) received series B funding of $29 million or around 420 billion Rupiah. The investment was led by Northstar Group and Alpha JWC Ventures with participation from BEENEXT, Vulcan Capital and AC Ventures.

Previously, ESB had collected a total funding of $10,6 million from a number of investors including Alpha JWC, Vulcan Capital, BEENEXT, AC Ventures, Skystar Capital, and Selera Kapital.

From the available funding, according to the sources we got, the current valuation of ESB has reached more than $100 million and has made it one of the Centaur startups in the SaaS category.

ESB is a SaaS platform developer that manages the culinary business independently all-in-one. This startup was founded by Gunawan Woen, Eka Prasetya, Setiadi Prawiryo Moeljadi, and Dwi Prawira in 2018. Armed with decades of experience in F&B and supply chains, the founders of ESB have a mission to help business owners increase profitability, sales, and operational efficiency through solutions based cloud.

Some of the solutions offered include an order-taking application front-end, Point of Sales (POS), kitchen operations solutions and F&B Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems Back-end. Additionally, business owners will gain access to an ecosystem of third-party providers, such as ingredient supply, food delivery, and digital payments.

Through ESB, F&B entrepreneurs also gain access to an ecosystem of providers. ESB has served more than 2.000 F&B brands and manages more than 100 million orders per year.

Northstar Group Managing Director Carlson Lau revealed, ESB has shown good performance and was even able to compete against global competitors with larger capitalization in winning international F&B in Indonesia. "We are happy to see the product and strategy development to market mature," he said.

Meanwhile, Founder & Managing Partner of AC Ventures Adrian Li added, "The ESB platform provides solutions based on cloud in a manner end-to-end for restaurant owners to reduce costs, manage operations and improve online delivery. ESB ready to revolutionize multi-billion market dine-in and takeaway in Indonesia," said Li.

Product expansion and development

Meanwhile, this funding will be used to expand its reach in the MSME market and launch new products. The value proposition offered includes: (1) simple payment and loan features, (2) working capital facilities, (3) feature development to boost SME productivity, (4) order and delivery management solutions, (5) accounting feature capabilities, and (6) HR information system capability.

ESB Co-Founder & CEO Gunawan Woen said the pandemic has accelerated digital adoption in the ecosystems involved in value chain F&B, from customer to material supplier. With this acceleration, F&B owners are encouraged to run more streamlined operations and explore new sales channels. This solution is also expected to encourage business growth in the midst of economic recovery.

In addition, rising costs due to commodity price inflation in early 2022 forced F&B businesses to further optimize their cost structure. This encourages them to adopt tools enabling them to increase productivity through consumer self-service, automation of internal workflows, and reduction of food waste. ESB is ready to capitalize on this trend.

"We view our F&B partners as equals, both SMEs to large-scale businesses. We are committed to helping our merchants generate more sales and increase their efficiency. By achieving that, we can ensure sustainability, bankability, and their growth. When our partners grow, ESB also grows," said Gunawan.

There are several digital platforms in Indonesia that are committed to supporting F&B actors, especially the SME scale DigiResto developed by MCAS. DigiResto had received an investment from SiCepat. There's also Runchise which has a franchise and culinary business management model.