Fore Coffee Gets Continued Funding Worth 118 Billion Rupiah

Fore Coffee, startup "on demand specialty coffee" today (31/1) announced the acquisition of additional funding of $8,5 million (equivalent to 118.7 billion Rupiah). This time the funding was obtained from a number of investors, including East Ventures, SMDV, Pavilion Capital, Agaeti Venture Capital, Insignia Ventures Partners, and several angel investors.

Previously Fore Coffee had first received initial funding from East Ventures in September 2018. For information, Fore Coffee is a project developed by East Ventures, after Ev Hive and Warung Pintar.

This new capital fund will be used by Fore Coffee to accelerate innovation in providing experiences online-to-offline (O2O) for the sale of its products. In addition, his party admitted that they would use the funds to invest in technological machines to produce higher quality coffee.

This startup was founded by three people co-founder, namely Robin Boe, Jhoni Kusno, and Elisa Suteja -- Elisa is a former East Ventures Associate. His vision is to restore the glory of coffee in Indonesia, especially Arabica coffee beans for specialty coffee.

"We use various technologies, ranging from applications mobile devices which we made ourselves, as well as existing technologies, such as MokaPOS to monitor payments, Member.id to loyalty platform, as well as GO-FOOD, GrabFood, and TravelokaEats as a distribution platform," explained Fore Coffee CEO Robin Boe explaining the use of technology in his startup. If you pay close attention, most of the technology provider partners are part of the East Ventures portfolio.

"Our vision is to make Fore Coffee an important player that can strengthen Indonesia's position as the number one producer of high-quality coffee in the world. Unlike other players, we do not see coffee as a beverage trend that is only temporary, but as an important commodity that can encourage the domestic economy and can be enjoyed as a lifestyle for the Indonesian people for the long term," continued Elisa Suteja, co-founder of Fore Coffee.

Using an O2O strategy, Fore Coffee integrates technologies such as apps mobile devices with the presence of retail stores. Applications are made to make it easier for customers to get the desired product. On the side o, Fore Coffee designed several shops only to serve online orders only. Currently it has operated 16 o in various locations in Jakarta.

In response to this investment, East Ventures' Managing Partner Willson Cuaca said, Fore Coffee is a hypothetical cross between the coffee industry and Indonesia's digital economy. His party continues to strive to improve the coffee industry chain through the context of today's digital economy.

"Fore Coffee is a new SME that couldn't exist in Indonesia a few years ago. But now, the digital ecosystem that has developed in Indonesia has made SMEs like Fore Coffee gain momentum [...] Fore Coffee is a model of 'Super UKM', an SME who have succeeded in utilizing technology and the digital ecosystem. If we can do it, other SMEs can of course, "said Willson.

Regarding investment for coffee shop developer startups, this is not the only one in Indonesia. Previously, Alpha JWC Ventures had also disbursed funding worth $8 million for Memories Coffee. The coffee shop industry is clearly on the rise, especially among millennial consumers – both in the form of cafes and restaurants brand coffee drink.