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Amatil X invests in Indonesian digital startup

Sue Mitchell
Sue MitchellColumnist

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Coca-Cola Amatil's $10 million venture capital arm has made its second investment in Indonesia, taking a strategic stake in a start-up which is helping thousands of small family-run eateries digitise their operations.

Amatil X has participated in a $US5 million ($7 million) series A capital raise by Wahyoo, a three-year-old restaurant solutions start-up, which plans to use the funds to accelerate expansion in Jakarta and other parts of Indonesia.

Amatil X co-founder and head Alix Rimington said the strategic stake in Wahyoo would enable CCA to better understand the warung makan or warteg sector, which accounts for a major slice of the Indonesian food and beverage market.

Amatil X has taken a stake in an Indonesian start-up helping family run eateries to modernise.  Bloomberg

Ms Rimington said there were around 35,000 wartegs in Jakarta alone and Wahyoo worked with about one in four, with more than 13,500 currently registered with the company.

"It's an unorganised sector and one that can be quite challenging — for us it's a really great opportunity to partner with a company that works closely with the warungs and understands them intimately and can help us with product development," Ms Rimington told The Australian Financial Review.

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Wahyoo currently works with warungs on their business to business operations, helping family-owned eateries move online and digitise their supply chains to access better deals for staples such as cooking oil, rice and beverages and manage their accounts.

The start-up is also developing a business-to-consumer service, giving warungs tools to digitise menus, list with food delivery aggregators, attract new customers and implement loyalty programs.

The Series A financing was led by Intudo Ventures and included the Kinesys Group, Arkblu Capital, Indogen Capital, Selera Kapital, Gratyo Universal Indonesia and Isenta Hioe.

Prior to the latest round, Wahyoo raised undisclosed seed funding from Agaeti Ventures, Chapter 1 Ventures, Kinesys, SMDV, East Ventures, and Rentracks.

Ms Rimington said the investment in Wahyoo supported Coca-Cola Amatil's strategy to be the leading beverage supplier on B2B platforms servicing the important small and medium sized enterprise sector.

"We are already working with Wahyoo to supply our beverages to warungs across Jakarta and we look forward to building a deeper partnership with Wahyoo as they build out their offer,” she said.

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Wayhoo was founded in 2017 by Peter Shearer, a digital marketing entrepreneur.

“With this round of financing, we plan to expand our operations outside of the Greater Jakarta region and build our team, especially the tech and product units," Mr Shearer said.

CCA launched Amatil X and an investment program, AX Ventures, in 2018 to invest in start-ups and concepts capable of helping the company grow top-line revenues.

Wahyoo is Amatil X’s sixth investment and its second in Indonesia. Earlier this year it acquired a stake in Indonesian freight logistics start-up Kargo Technologies, which Ms Rimington described as 'Uber for trucks'.

Amatil X also has investments in Singapore-based Tabsquare, an AI-backed restaurant management and customer engagement platform, Doshii, a cloud-based software platform that connects restaurants' point of sale systems to third-party apps such as booking systems and food aggregators, Liven, an Australian-based dining rewards app, and Aider, a New Zealand based voice-driven digital assistant for SMEs.

CCA is one of the biggest non-alcoholic beverage companies in Indonesia and has been investing heavily in bottling capacity and distribution, but sales and earnings have been volatile in recent years due to rising commodity prices, currency movements and soft consumer spending.

Indonesia has also been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. Indonesian beverage volumes fell about 23 per cent in June after dropping 40 per cent in April and May due to social distancing measures during the traditionally heavy trading period in the lead-up to Ramadan.

Sue Mitchell writes the fortnightly Window Shopping column for the Financial Review and has covered retailing for over 30 years. Connect with Sue on Twitter. Email Sue at smitchell2045@gmail.com

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