Esensi Solusi Buana (ESB), an Indonesia-based restaurant management platform, has raised US$3 million in a Series A funding round led by Beenext.
AC Ventures, Skystar Capital and Selera Kapital also participated.
ESB plans to use the fresh money to introduce new features to its technology stack and expand its partnerships with restaurants. It aims to emulate the path of Toast, a similar company from the US that is currently valued at US$8 billion.
ESB noted the F&B industry in Indonesia accounts for over US$57 billion in annual revenue and will continue growing rapidly driven by increasing numbers of middle-class consumers. Despite this, the industry struggles with losses due to operational inefficiencies from manual inventory planning, disorganized waste management and fraud.
The startup was founded two years ago with the goal of solving that problem by building an end-to-end SaaS platform for F&B businesses. Its suite of solutions includes a cloud-based mobile ordering system that syncs up automatically with restaurants’ POS system, kitchen management system and enterprise resource pricing (ERP).
According to ESB, these technology stacks allow restaurants to reduce time to serve customers and eliminate errors in information entry.
The firm disclosed that it has experienced growth of 12x in the number of partners over the period of 2020 and seen less than five per cent churn from its user base. Notable clients include local F&B groups such as Boga Group, MAP Boga and Ismaya Group.
Also Read: What new digital solutions mean for Indonesia’s F&B sector
“We’ve had good feedback from our merchants and brands, and over 90 per cent of them continue to utilise our system as they’ve experienced the operational benefits ESB has to offer,” noted Eka Prasetya, COO of ESB.
ESB also helped F&B business during COVID-19 lockdown restrictions by launching solutions for restaurants to deliver independently and enable contactless dining. With this function, restaurants can serve delivery orders without having to incur the commission cost charged by delivery platforms, allowing them to increase their margins.
Within six months of launching, ESB claims to have generated over 20 million annual orders for its customers.
“ESB is empowering and enabling restaurants to focus on what they do best, serving their customers with great food, and letting ESB take care of the technology,” said Teruhide Sato, Founder and CEO of Beenext.
“ESB’s data-driven and hardware agnostic approach enable the platform to solve a pressing pain point for merchants today,” opined Adrian Li, Founder and Managing Partner of AC Ventures.
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Image Credit: ESB
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