Startup KitaBeli Announces Additional Series A Funding

Social commerce platform KitaBeli announced that it has secured additional funding for its series A round. Participating investors include Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal (founders of Meesho, India), Banana Capital and Kopi Kenangan Capital.

This acquisition is about 6 months away from the $10 million series A funding that the company booked in March 2021.

The additional funds will be used to accelerate expansion into more cities, as well as build SKUs for consumers to create a one-stop-shop for e-commerce needs outside large cities.

This company was founded by Prateek Chaturvedi, Subhash Bishnoi, Ivana Tjandra, and Gopal Singh Rathore. With the concept of ‘group buying’, their platform sells daily necessities such as FMCG, fresh products, beauty, electronics, and others.

The main focus is on the tier-2 to 4 city market, currently, they have operated in 13 cities, ranging from Solo, Medan, Kediri, Depok, Madiun, Yogyakarta, etc.

Vidit from Meesho said that the combination of business models that KitaBeli runs has the potential to grow in the Indonesian market. KitaBeli combines PinDuoDuo’s ‘group buying’ approach and combines it with a local community approach.

How it works, through the KitaBeli application, users or community leaders who become ‘team leaders’ can share information about product catalogues/prices in their social circles.

Then, people can also order the goods through it. With competitive prices, this offline network approach is considered to be effective.

“We have a strong belief that KitaBeli’s strategy of having end-customer relationships is the key differentiating factor that sets it apart in the competitive space,” said Turner Novak of Banana Capital.

Crowd Serving Small Town

According to the data submitted, Indonesia is currently the main market for e-commerce in Southeast Asia. However, service penetration in the country is still less than 10% of the total retail GMV. 

This means that there is still a significant market potential that has not been exploited. While the consumer base in tier 2-4 cities have accounted for 75% of the total $175 billion in retail GMV. 

The penetration of e-commerce users in these cities can be said to be minimal and provides room for further digitization. On this basis, social commerce startups flocked to enliven the market with their various approaches.

This month alone, two social commerce startups have announced funding, namely Dagangan for series A worth 163 billion Rupiah and Evermos for series B, 427 billion Rupiah.

With the fresh funds obtained, both of them are also committed to deeper penetration into small cities throughout Indonesia.

Previously Received Seed Funding from Several Investors

Startup KitaBeli, which is a social commerce platform, received Series-A funding of US$10 million or around Rp144 billion. The funding was obtained from a number of investors led by Go-Ventures.

In the Series A funding round, East Ventures and AC Ventures, which are investors in the KitaBeli Seed Funding funding round, also participated again.

The KitaBeli team is based in India and Indonesia, consisting of a technology team in Bengaluru as well as an operational team and a marketing team in Jakarta.

KitaBeli offers a mobile application that allows users to buy daily necessities, ranging from daily necessities, fresh produce, beauty, electronics, and other household items. 

Users can unlock discounts and benefit from lower prices on daily essentials by sharing information with their friends and neighbors. In addition to lower prices, users enjoy free shipping, one-day delivery, daily offers, and 24×7 online support.

The application users can invite their acquaintances to form a group, then buy the product together at a discounted price. 

KitaBeli has implemented a partner-based delivery network, where individuals in the community earn commissions for making long-distance deliveries of ordered goods.

Over time, this platform aims to connect suppliers and farmers with tens of millions of consumers in tier 2-4 cities across Indonesia.