Indonesian headquartered online grocery platform, HappyFresh has recently bagged USD 65mil in Series D. The new funding was led by Naver Financial Corporation and Gafina B.V., followed by STIC, LB, and Mirae Asset Indonesia and Singapore. Existing investors such as Mirae Asset-Naver Asia Growth Fund and Z Venture Capital have also participated. The round exceeded initial targets, due to significant demand from new and existing investors.
The company has stated that over the past 18 months it has experienced an unprecedented growth as many households uses HappyFresh service as the safest way to get their groceries delivered during the pandemic.
Guillem Segarra, CEO, HappyFresh said, “We have been on a mission for the past 6 years to provide freshly handpicked groceries at the highest quality to our customers. Especially over the past years, all our efforts have been put into being there for all the families that have trusted us to bring your groceries to your doorstep safely”
The company also expressed that it has moved further towards achieving long-term profitability. HappyFresh has shared some details in 2020 where traffic has grown by factors of 10-20x across the 3 countries it operates in. This has led investors to continue working with HappyFresh in to seize a tremendous opportunity within the groceries space in Southeast Asia.
“We see a big shift in customers’ behaviour; retention and frequency rates have significantly increased while the overall basket size has been consistently growing. We attribute this to a major shift in share of wallet from offline to online, which is here to stay.” Segarra explained further.
HappyFresh also saw the rapid rise of e-grocery across Asia in particular Southeast Asia thanks to younger population in urban regions with higher income and expenditure have driven early adoption while in the past year, mass market adoption has massively accelerated the overall penetration of digital platforms.
When asked about what the funds will be focused on, Segarra said, “We have been extremely busy scaling up our operations across the different markets while maintaining our quality and safety standards. Our shoppers and drivers have been the heroes and the entire team worked tirelessly to cope with all the demand. We are just at the beginning of our journey and with all this support received, the road ahead is really exciting”. HappyFresh has increased its fleet by the thousands during the past months in order to fulfil the increase in demand.
“Continuing to focus our efforts on providing a convenient and safe service, we will be enhancing our existing operating model together with our partnerships we already have with supermarket retailers across the region. This will unlock additional operational efficiency, higher service levels and quality controls to improve customer experience further. We want our customers to get all the groceries they need at the freshest condition and at an even faster speed, ensuring an effortless online grocery shopping experience.” Segarra added.
The team has also put in place plans to improve service offerings such as more payment methods, better user experience and assortment, bringing HappyFresh’s service to more families in each country across the region.
“The strong management team and unique service offering will enable HappyFresh and its partners to successfully navigate these unprecedented times, with best-in-class customer experience and safety, building loyalty and long-term market leadership positions.” Peter Na, Director of Southeast Asia Investments at Naver and board member of HappyFresh stated.
“While we continue to help more families fulfil their grocery needs, we are also working closely with our partners to expand into more areas which include Putrajaya, Cyberjaya, Rawang, Butterworth, Kedah, Kelantan, Negeri Sembilan and areas within East Malaysia. In terms of higher service quality, we have extended our payment assortment to DuitNow for the ease of doorstep payments, adding to the comprehensive cashless payment methods available, including credit & debit card payments, bank transfers and e-wallet options such as GrabPay and Boost. Moreover, no minimum spend initiatives for repeat customers and express services will be introduced in the coming months.” said Hu Hun Hui, Managing Director of HappyFresh Malaysia.