Esensi Solusi Buana Gets Additional Series A+ 110 Billion Rupiah, Expands SaaS Solution for F&B

Esensi Solusi Buana (ESB) today (12/10) announced the acquisition of series A+ funding of $7,6 million (worth 110 billion Rupiah). The round was led by Alpha JWC Ventures, with participation from Beenext, Vulcan Capital, AC Ventures and Skystar Capital. Some of these investors were previous investors in round series A in March 2021.

The funds raised will be focused on expanding its products, including features upselling, increasing business intelligence (BI), delivery solutions, financing, finance, and human resource information systems (HRIS). This expansion is in order to realize ESB's mission to become a provider of business operations end-to-end at the forefront of the F&B industry.

Alpha JWC Ventures Partner Eko Kurniadi said, "F&B is an industry that continues to grow with new arrivals constantly coming in every month. But during the pandemic, most have experienced the same difficulty in adapting to today's consumer behavior and changing restaurant operating structures.

According to him, today's F&B industry players need to offer a booking experience touchless, manage their inventory better, and reduce operating costs significantly, to keep their business intact. ESB wants to solve all of these problems with an overall solution, regardless of how complex the operations are.

“The many leading F&B brands that use ESB products prove the real benefits of ESB for F&B businesses. As a partner, we believe that ESB can play an important role in digital transformation," said Eko in an official statement.

ESB Co-founder & CEO Gunawan Woen added, “We are proud to welcome Alpha JWC Ventures and Vulcan Capital as our backers and are grateful for the continued trust of investors.”

ESB is a provider for mobile devices to report the culinary business operational system all-in-one linking front end, back end, consumers and supply chain partners for restaurants. This startup was founded in 2014 with the mission of helping F&B businesses to increase profits by using technology, to improve sales results and operational efficiency.

Initially, ESB started its business by creating solutions cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) that can be customized to replace systems hardware-based traditional and less affordable. ESB then expanded its product with restaurant operational system all-in-one which includes system Point-of-Sales (POS) and technology Mobile Ordering (ESB Orders).

With approach all-in-one, the founders of ESB aspired to simplify and shorten the operational process, especially for F&B business entrepreneurs who have many branches and who deal directly with consumers. ESB aspires to follow Toast's success in the United States with its recent successful Initial Public Offering (IPO).

ESB has served more than 500 F&B brands, including major groups such as MAP Boga Adiperkasa, Boga Group, Ismaya Group, Sour Sally Group, and Marugame Udon, processing more than 40 million orders annually.

Impact of the pandemic

Gunawan continued, during the pandemic "success" forced the F&B business to further optimize operations, either by making it leaner or finding new ways to increase sales. This can be seen from the massive digitization efforts in all areas stakeholder in the F&B industry, from restaurants to suppliers, in using restaurant technology.

It is claimed that ESB has tripled from the previous year during the pandemic due to booking requests with the system touchless provided by the ESB through the ESB Order service. Currently, ESB has processed Gross Transaction Value totaling over $500 million and is expected to grow 10 times in the next two years. He also believes that the culinary business will bounce back after being affected by the pandemic.

In addition to allowing ordering via mobile phones, ESB's ERP and POS products have proven to be a savior for many F&B businesses by minimizing the occurrence of leaks and human error. More than 95% of ESB users use the whole system front-end software and Back-end, proving the need for holistic optimization.

“The restaurant business is a blend of manufacturing, trading and retail. We try to lighten the load and address the problem of restaurant businesses using separate platforms to cater for different aspects. At the same time, ESB also assists the F&B business in optimizing consumer engagement, operational systems, and ultimately to increase their profits.”

ESB Co-founder and COO Eka Prasetya added, apart from product excellence, the company's other mission is to provide access. The company believes that all business scales deserve good support.

“That is why we are expanding our services to cater not only to the already big-name F&B industry, but also to small and medium-sized businesses at a cost that fits their budget. We want to grow together with the entire business industry and achieve success together,” concluded Eka.

Apart from ESB, there are several other digital platforms that also serve a similar market share. For example DigiResto developed by MCAS, which has also received investment from logistics company SiCepat. With a concept that is more integrated with cloud kitchens, decacorn Gojek and Grab also has special services to democratize culinary merchant business processes, namely through the GoBiz application and GrabMerchant.