Thirsty! Complete New Funding in 2023, Ready for Expansion of 1.300 Stores

After pocketing the rounds B1 series in June 2022, F&B startup in the segment new tea & bobba Thirsty! will complete series B2 funding in early 2023. Previously Haus! have earned series A pendanaan funding worth IDR 30 billion from BRI Ventures through the Sembrani Nusantara Fund.

To DailySocial, Thirsty CEOs! Gufron Syarif revealed that the fresh funds will be used for expansion in Indonesia. At this time, Thirst! already has around 229 stores, and will add around 1.300 new stores.

"We are finalizing the B2 phase of fundraising which we have been exploring since October and November this year. The hope is that we can closing This funding round is in the first quarter of 2023," he said.

Next year, Thirst! also plans to launch applications and expand products through sister brands Hot Oppa which was released last November. Variants of food products in the future will be the focus of the company to improve growth stores and sales vertical.

"Goal our future is to become F&B Holding. Different from brand others, we will focus on the lower middle market. Judging from the business model we employ, the current calculation is each square meters shop that we rent, must be optimized revenueher," he added.

During the pandemic, the company claims to have experienced positive growth. One of the reasons they are not affected by the PSBB rules is, Haus! located in a residential area, not in a mall which was significantly affected during the pandemic.

Launch the app

To expand its ecosystem, Thirst! will launch the application in the first quarter of 2023. The company decided to use the application because it wants to understand the habits and loyalty customer. Gradually, the application will be launched with an initial focus on pickup and delivered, following later on features loyalty and additional features.

Although currently Thirsty! relying heavily on ordering and delivery from third-party aggregators, from September to now there has been a shift in Haus! who make purchases offline.

"It relates to financial health from most third-party aggregators, which are starting to cut back cashburning and subsidies. Finally, postage subsidies are reduced as well as discount subsidies. At present, we record that the portion is 50-50 between offline and online purchases," said Gufron.

With its own app, Thirst! expect to get about 25% of the 50% of existing online customers today. It was asked whether in the future more customers would make purchases with options pickup or offline, Gufron said there will still be customers who choose to make purchases online, but the choice pickup and directly to the counter is also expected to increase.

Currently the company claims to have profitable although not too many mature compared with brand who are already running a business. Since its inception as a startup food tech, Thirst! will remain focused on profitability and capitalize on trends from coffee chain to new tea & bobba.

"Categorically new tea & bobba globally is on the rise. CAGR has been totaling up to double digits annually. And Indonesia only arrived in 2010, but now it is starting to shift from a trend to a habit and in the future it will become a culture," concluded Gufron.