Brand Aggregator "Tjufoo" Wants To Rank Up Local D2C Brand Developers

Increasing business model e-commerce rollup or brand aggregators in Indonesia is used by various startups to provide a platform for entrepreneur D2C strengthens their business. One of the platforms that is trying to provide these services is Tjufoo.

Just launched in early 2022, a startup founded by a former employee Grab, TJ Tham, want to be brand aggregators with the concept of "House of Brands". That is helping brand locally to improve performance through a suite of digital technologies, data platforms, artificial intelligence and an experienced team.

To DailySocial.id, TJ Tham emphasized that, unlike other platforms that offer similar services, Tjufoo specifically wants to focus on the Indonesian market as a whole. Thus it can help the owner brand in various regions maximize their business even more.

Regarding the brand category, TJ Tham is reluctant to target one category specifically. Complex type brand D2C in Indonesia, makes Tjufoo prefer to be agnostic and accept everything brand which is relevant.

"It's too early for us to decide brand specifically what we want to target. From my experience asking investors to well-known consultants, they still can't find the concept brand ideal for D2C business in Indonesia. For that we choose agnostic, said TJ Tham.

In Indonesia at this time the platform brand aggregators already present include Una Brands, Hyperfast and OpenLabs.

Want to be a strategic partner

From the curation side brand, the Tjufoo team still has ticket sizes customized investment. And their way look brand to invest in: Are they ready for a strategic partnership with Tjufoo?

If it's not ready, Tjufoo offers it to the owner brand to join the Sarinah Pandu incubator program. Sarinah Pandu is a form of PT SARINAH fostering MSME players through a series of trainings with a systematic syllabus and collaborating with other stakeholders. stakeholder.

In this collaboration, Tjufoo also provides support in the form of business funding, mentoring, and the ecosystem for the development of the digitalization of Sarinah's reference MSMEs.

Tjufoo is committed to accelerating the growth of MSMEs by acquiring brand local in the D2C category or selling without intermediaries. This year, Tjufoo plans to accelerate the growth of the MSME business in Indonesia by acquiring brand potential local. Capital is still a complex problem that is always faced by MSME entrepreneurs in Indonesia.

"For this reason, we are committed to developing MSMEs and brand from various categories and levels by investing in business development capital with an acquisition value of Rp1,8 trillion which we will implement as a short-term plan. With this capital support, we hope that Indonesia will be able to produce hundreds of local brands that can compete in the global market,” said TJ Tham.

This year there are several plans that Tjufoo wants to launch, including building a strong foundation for the D2C ecosystem and continuing to recruit brands. with an unlimited number, as long as there is a match between them.

Tjufoo also wants to be a partner for brand, which not only provides an investment of around 51%, but also wants to be a partner who helps brands manage their business to help them recruit the best digital talent. To be able to grow sustainably in accordance with the times, Tjufoo also always provides mentoring from superior individuals to large cross-sector companies such as Apple, Grab, Amazon, SAP, and JP Morgan.

"Most brand aggregators choose way exit i.e. buy brand it in full. But at Tjufoo apart from offering this method, we also want to build together brand better and act as a strategic partner," said TJ Tham.

Series A . fundraising plan

Currently Tjufoo has completed the pre-series A funding. There are already two recorded venture capital who provided funding for them, including TNB AURA and Venture Discovery. This year Tjufoo has plans to continue fundraising activities for the series A stage.

To DailySocial.id, Ventura Discovery Partner Raditya Permana said that seeing the huge potential for platforms like Tjufoo to grow in Indonesia as a brand aggregator, was the main reason why Venturra was interested in investing in Tjufoo.

Another reason why Venturra Discovery is interested in becoming an investor is TJ Tham's previous experience as CEO helped build him up Grab grow in Indonesia. Judging from experience, skill and TJ Tham's empathy, became a strong reason for them to help Tjufoo grow into a leading brand aggregator in Indonesia.

"We also see that Tjufoo's focus on Indonesia is the best choice. In contrast to other brand aggregators who prefer to market to the global market, Tjufoo's selection to focus on Indonesia is ideal, because the commerce landscape in Indonesia is fairly complex. Channel chosen by most owners brand micro class not only e-commerce channels only but also chat commerce, social media, and others," said Raditya.