1. Startups

Food Market Hub Wants to Be a "Digital Procurement" Platform for Restaurant Business

Has a target of embracing around 10 thousand restaurants in Indonesia

One of the problems that restaurant owners currently have to deal with is the coordination around ordering and purchasing raw materials from suppliers. Also control expenses, especially if the owner has more than one restaurant.

Most of the management of these activities is still done manually, starting from using the application chat such as WhatsApp to make direct communication. As a result, many restaurant owners cannot control and manage their expenses related to kitchen needs comprehensively.

Seeing this problem, Food Market Hub (FMH) is here to provide a management platform that helps businesses automate their procurement and inventory systems by leveraging technology big data fundartificial intelligence. FMH is a company from Malaysia, founded by Anthony See who is the owner of the restaurant and Shayna Teh in 2017.

Besides Malaysia and Indonesia, FMH has also been present in Thailand, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore.

"FMH is trying to make it easier for restaurant owners to manage their expenses by utilizing technology that is integrated with their POS system and can be connected to their customers chat app available," Anthony told DailySocial.id.

Bridging restaurant owners and suppliers

In particular, users of the FMH platform can connect with suppliers or beg raw materials as desired and integrate the systems they already use (POS, inventory, accounting systems, etc.) cloud FMH. Thus, the process of ordering raw materials is considered to be easier and more efficient because decisions regarding procurement of goods can be made through one platform.

"In addition to helping restaurant owners, the biggest problem that is often experienced by beg is how they can offer their products such as vegetables that have a usage time limit. It is hoped that through FMH, these products can be offered directly to various restaurant owners with the aim of depleting their stock," said Anthony.

After officially being present in Indonesia since August 2021, there are 27 brand Indonesian restaurant which includes 1335 o, is digitizing procurement systems, inventory management and all backend operations through the Food Market Hub.

There are 26 other restaurant businesses that are currently switching to systems and ecosystems procurement digital FMH, including Tahooe and Wanfan.

The F&B business that continues to grow is indeed an opportunity for technology innovators. For restaurant business management solutions, there are already a number of players in the local startup ecosystem. One of them The Essence of Global Solutions, their current SaaS service has been adopted more than 500 brand F&B. Then beyond that there is Moka which also includes Moka Fresh products for the procurement of fresh ingredients.

Immediately raise series B funding

Prior to expanding to Indonesia, FMH had pocketed series A+ funding of US$ 8,5 million or equivalent to Rp 121 billion. The funding was led by AC Ventures (also supported by Malaysia Penjana Kapital fund). Previous investors were involved in the funding, including Go-Ventures, SIG, and 500 Overall, including East Ventures, Velocity Ventures, Capital Code, and several angel investors.

This funding round brings FMH's total series A funding to $12,5 million including the previous $4 million series A round in November 2020. The fresh funds were used by FMH to expand their business into Indonesia, penetrate the local market further, and strengthen their presence in Singapore. and Thailand. This year FMH also has plans to do a series B fundraising.

Alluded to whether there is strategic cooperation between FMH and the ecosystem in Gojek, Anthony emphasized that there are no plans in that direction. Their focus is on providing services and technology to MSME actors, around 80-90% of FMH target them. However, FMH also targets enterprises such as KFC as their clients.

"For our monetization strategy, we have free and paid options, all tailored to client needs. Some clients choose the paid way so that it can be integrated with their POS and accounting systems," said Anthony.

Regarding the FMH service area, the focus is still on big cities like Jakarta. The plan is that they will also expand to Bandung, Surabaya and Bali. The target for the Indonesian market is expected to reach around 10 thousand restaurants.

"We have plans to implement AI and machine learning technology to be able to predict how much a restaurant will spend in the next 7 days. Although it has not yet been launched in Indonesia, we hope to help restaurant owners control their spending better," said Anthony.

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