As he grew up, Peter Shearer watched his mother get up every day at 2 or 3 in the morning to prepare for his restaurant business. For many people who own small food companies in Indonesia, "everything is managed on its own, so I really wanted to create a system so that they can have better operations and achieve a higher quality of life," Shearer told ProWellTech.
Its startup, Wahyoo, was founded in 2017 to help small restaurants, called warung makan, digitize and automate multiple businesses, from ordering supplies to managing finances. Today Wahyoo announced that it has raised $ 5 million in Serie A funding led by Intudo Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on Indonesia.
Other investors in the round include Kinesys Group, Amatil X (the venture capital program of Coca-Cola Amatil, one of the five largest Coca-Cola bottlers in the world), Arkblu Capital, Indogen Capital, Selera Kapital, Gratyo Universal Indonesia and Isenta Hioe. . The capital will be used for the assumption, development of the Wahyoo technology platform and expansion beyond the Greater Jakarta area.
In a press release on investment, Intudo Ventures founding partner Patrick Yip said: "Small and medium-sized enterprises are one of the main drivers of economic growth in Indonesia and are being transformed through new innovative activities such as Wahyoo, bringing greater prosperity. economic to small business owners across the country. Through the company's digitization efforts, Wahyoo's highly targeted support for Makan war companies is creating a positive economic and social impact for the Indonesian working class. "
Wahyoo launched his app almost exactly a year ago and has so far integrated about 13,800 warung makan. The co-founders of the company are Shearer, the managing director; CEO Daniel Cahyadi; and chief of technology Michael Dihardja.
With around 268 million people, Indonesia is the largest market in Southeast Asia and there are already startups, such as Warung Pintar and BakuWarung, which focus on helping warung, or small corner shops, to digitize more of their operations.
Shearer said he wanted to focus on Indonesian restaurants, particularly because "my background is in the food industry and I love everything related to food. Secondly, the potential is very great because nobody has tapped into this type of warung before Everyone focuses on retail, but nobody draws on the culinary sector. "
Wahyoo currently employs around 170 people, including teams on the field who meet with the owners of Makan Warung. Restaurants are "usually run by a family, from generation to generation", with almost all the tasks done manually, including accounting and going to the market early in the morning to buy ingredients, Shearer said.
Wahyoo features include a grocery delivery service the next day from its warehouses and integration with Go Food, a popular delivery app. The startup also runs an educational program called the Wahyoo Academy, with financial courses to help makan owners increase customer traffic and revenue and offers brand advertising and partnerships.
For example, a restaurant on the Wahyoo platform can earn money by placing banner ads or brochures in their stores. This is one of the ways Wahyoo monetizes. It's free for restaurant owners and earns by taking a percentage of the brand commissions.
Another revenue stream is the Wahyoo fried chicken franchise, which offers makan warung owners the opportunity to open a small stall in front of their stores. It currently has around 350 stalls and keeps costs low by partnering with one of Indonesia's largest poultry suppliers. Shearer said the company's goal is to increase the number of stalls to 1,000 by the end of this year.
While Wahyoo's restaurants saw a decline in their activities in April and May due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Shearer said it started to recover in June and July and has now returned to normal, partly due to the Go Food integration of the platform.
In the future, Wahyoo could face competition from other startups focused on warung if they decide to expand their services to restaurants and new startups who want to take advantage of the business opportunities offered by the 59.3 million small and medium-sized enterprises in Indonesia, many of the which have not yet digitized their operations.
Shearer said that Wahyoo's value proposition is its complementary services portfolio. "We are basically creating an ecosystem," he added. "We are not only focusing on the supply chain, but also on our brand. We have the fried chicken brand and in the future we will draw on financial technology and also on catering. "
