UENA Raises New Funding Led by East Ventures and Trihill Capital

Hyperlocal online F&B startup UENA has secured another round of funding, led by East Ventures and Trihill Capital for an undisclosed amount. This round is claimed to be getting stronger balance sheets UENA after acquiring early stage funding last September.

Delivered in its official statement, UENA will use this funding to develop locations to increase the number of users and subscribers. UENA was founded by Alvin Arief (CEO) and Roy Yohanes (COO) and launched in August 2022.

Co-Founder and CEO Alvin Arief claimed to have received validation from the market. This is shown by the fact that the majority of transactions come from repeat orders, and loyal customers increase every month. "Even though it has only been in operation for less than a year, some of the initial shops have already reached the stage breakeven and have levels payback healthy," he said.

UENA has opened seven kitchen locations in Jakarta and has served more than 300 thousand portions. Each kitchen location serves a hyperlocal radius of 1-1,5km and handles delivery in-house to minimize costs and time. The company claims that it does not depend on online motorcycle taxi delivery services because more than 80% of orders come directly.

The market value of daily food in Indonesia is estimated at US$90 billion per year. In this segment, almost all of them are served by street vendors who are still very fragmented. This often causes losses for consumers, especially in terms of quality, consistency and price.

UENA offers quality food services at affordable prices using the format cloud kitchen. This concept is considered efficient and utilizes technology and economies of scale to improve quality and reduce prices at the same time.

VP of Investments Trihill Capital V. Ian Sulaiman revealed that the majority of Indonesia's population is middle class, which is estimated to represent 45% of the total population. In general, they face difficulties in getting good quality food at affordable prices, especially when faced with conditions in the field with food choices that are less safe and hygienic.

"We support UENA's efforts to increase daily food choices in terms of price, access and quality for the middle class of the Indonesian population," he said.

Funding food tech

Current technological advances have brought many innovations to the business world, including in the field of business F&B or culinary. Cloudkitchen is one of the trends that culinary business people are actively involved in. The concept is to operate a kitchen that focuses on food delivery services only.

Apart from offering new innovations, this service is also said to be able to help MSMEs develop their culinary businesses. Many investors have also looked at startups operating in the F&B or culinary sector which can also be categorized as foodtech.

In 2022, there will be at least five startups foodtech which received funding from well-known investors. One of them is startup multi--brand Hangry received funding of IDR 316 billion to carry out expansion plans. Apart from that, there is Mangkokku, an F&B business managed by President Jokowi's son who has succeeded in obtaining series A funding of IDR 101 billion.

Entering 2023, the F&B startup Haus has also successfully completed their series B2 funding after securing the series B1 round in June 2022. It was launched in 2018 as an F&B startup in the product segment new tea & boba, Thirsty! currently has around 229 stores and will add around 1.300 new stores