Thai agritech startup Freshket on Thursday announced that it received USD 3 million of Series A funding in an Openspace Ventures-led round. Freshket is an e-commerce marketplace that connects farmers and food processors to supply fresh products to businesses and consumers in Thailand.
With the funding, in which participated private equity firm ECG-Research and the public-private joint venture Innospace, the company plans to scale up and “move further up in the supply chain.”
“This infusion of capital will allow Freshket to upgrade technologies, enhance efficiencies in our supply chain management, and improve our customer service platform,” said Freshket CEO Ponglada Paniangwet.
Founded in 2017 by Paniangwet and Tuangploi Chiwalaksanangkoon, Freshket secured seed funding from 500 TukTuks, 500 Startups’ USD 15 million micro-fund for Thailand.
Thailand’s online sales are expected to hit USD 49 billion in 2020, according to estimates by the Electronic Transactions Development Agency (ETDA). The country’s food service market is worth over USD 7.7 billion in annual purchases across more than 200,000 restaurants, according to Freshket.
With its e-commerce site and mobile application, Freshket is expected to benefit from the booming mobile commerce market. In Thailand, mobile now accounts for 52% of all online transactions, according to a report by J.P. Morgan in 2019.
Other contributors in the funding round have been Pamitra Wineka and Ivan Sustiawan, the co-founders of Indonesian agritech startup Tanihub, as well as the Singapore-based food conglomerate Denis Group, and Thai family office Seeders Club, which are both former investors of Freshket.
Openspace Ventures earlier this year led its first investment in Thailand with the backing of fintech firm Finnomena.