Secai Marche secures $1.6M in series A for Asia’s shared supply chain for fresh foods

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The Secai Marche team
Image credit: Secai Marche

Tokyo- / Kuala Lumpur-based Secai Marche, the Japanese startup behind a shared food supply chain for the Southeast Asian market under the same name, announced on Tuesday that it has secured 210 million yen (about $1.6 million) from Agri-invest, Spiral Ventures Asia, and Beyond Next Ventures. This follows their previous (supposed) seed round securing 150 million yen back in May of 2021.

Since its launch back in July of 2018, the company has been offering a cold supply chain connecting farmers and food producers with F&B businesses in the Southeast Asian market, especially optimized for the delivery of low-volume and high-mix orders.

Supply chains for fresh produce in the region is usually operated by the supplier side, which are optimized for bulk deliveries and therefore difficult to use it for small restaurants which typically ask for small orders or niche needs. The company wants to solve the problem by building a shared supply chain allowing several different food suppliers to use for delivery.

Secai Marche has launched four distribution centers in Malaysia to date, which allows them to offer a one-stop fulfillment service dealing with more than 4,000 fresh foods, including vegetables, fruits, and seafood from producers around the world. Their improvement effort of delivery efficiency could help reducing the waste rate to 1%. The company will use the funds to expand its fulfillment service areas as well as enhancing demand forecast leveraging artificial intelligence technology.

In view of optimized fresh food supply chain startups in the region, Thailand’s Freshket raised $23.5 million in a Series B round in May, Y Combinator Alumni Eden Farm from Indonesia won $13.5 million in a pre-Series B round yesterday, and Singapore-based Glife raised $3 million in the first close of a series A round last year.

via PR Times