The past couple of years have been make-or-break for many industries, who have been forced to take unusual risks in order to stay afloat. The advent of user-friendly apps, tech-enabled driver networks, coupled with a global lockdown, has promoted innovation in food production and distribution. Many who refused to change have seen their business collapse. However, others also received major investments, turning “Mom & Pop” shops into national superstars in record time.
In September 2020, Bali Investment Club approved US$ 200,000 staged funding for BukaPO. A trailblazer in the Indonesian food industry, BukaPO is an online community-driven marketplace, where users can pre-order their favorite homemade meals from over 1,000 merchants across Bali. To date, the start-up has sold more than 500,000 products and brought a similar dollar amount into the hands of micro-entrepreneurs, delivering true impact value to those who need it most. BukaPO was born and operates in Bali since its launch in December 2020 and currently covers food delivery around Denpasar, Badung, and Ubud.
The team has been helping communities on a grassroots level to hop into the digital era by onboarding traditional “street and home cooks” onto its platform. This includes product promotions, free basic branding, product photography, educating and training vendors in order to gain more profit, and expanding their market through cross-collaboration. The pre-order system of BukaPO also helps to minimize the risk of financial loss often experienced by these micro business owners, as meals are paid for ahead of time, a huge change for people with very little disposable income.
Of course, BukaPO also offers many advantages to their customers, such as promos, cashbacks, and rewards that can be obtained through point accumulations from orders made in the application. Customers are also allowed to order from different vendors in one transaction, a feature that is still rare in the food-technology industry.
Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of BukaPO, Olaf Purvis, said in a recent interview that
“Pre-Order” food delivery system is a COMMON CULTURE FOR INDONESIAN CITIZENS and has been an ON-GOING TREND since before the Covid-19 pandemic or even Youtube.
The little push that BukaPO brings to this ingrained culture clearly resonates as the merchant onboarding and product sales grew by over 25 times or 6,300% in just 7 months time. Food is just the beginning.
Tom Courly, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of BIC said;
“We couldn’t be more proud to see a Bali-born start-up gain so much traction so fast. In fact, we’ve had to constantly adapt our growth and funding plan to meet the company’s record breaking month-on-month results. Our goal now is to help Olaf and his team get similar traction in Java, before we prepare the Series A round and aim for national deployment of BukaPO.”
“These necessary upgrades will ADD GREATER VALUE to both VENDORS & CUSTOMERS, and will help handle the EVER-GROWING PLATFORM TRAFFIC.”
Regional Head of BukaPO, Samantha added that the East Java branch will target more than 1,000 micro business owners in the next 3 months. The Java team will also train and develop its merchant community through many educational programs to help this growing workforce provide ongoing service not just to regular customers, but to larger businesses too.
The compass is set West for Olaf Purvis and his team of community leaders who are now entering Indonesia’s largest market, Java. With a full support structure in place, Bali Investment Club is confident that BukaPO is on the right path and will continue to support the company as it continues to expand cross-country. Stay tuned for ongoing updates.
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