JAKARTA, Indonesia, December 14, 2022 — Eratani, an Indonesia-based agritech startup that provides end-to-end farm management solutions for local farmers, announces the close of their oversubscribed $3.8M seed round led by Singapore-based VC firm TNB Aura and with commitments from AgFunder, Trihill Capital, and B.I.G. Ventures.
The agricultural sector in Indonesia remains highly fragmented with farmers still managing their own farmland while working with limited access to finances, quality supplies, and the market. Locally, around 75 percent of Indonesia’s farmers continue to practice traditional cultivation methods (Indonesian Central Bureau of Statistics).
Seeing a tremendous opportunity to digitize once operationally manual processes for millions of farmers across the archipelago, founders Andrew Soeherman, Kevin Laksono, and Angles Gani launched Eratani to support farmers by providing end-to-end farm management solutions that cover their upstream to downstream needs.
Eratani accompanies farmers from the beginning to the end of their farming process. Using field data statistics collected by the Eratani team, they are able to help increase farmers’ productivity. This data-driven farming management technology includes scientific agri-inputs instruction, agricultural education with selected agronomists, and the distribution of their agri-output for commerce.
Vicknesh R Pillay, Founding Partner of TNB Aura, added that “due to the highly fragmented nature of the Agri value chain in the region, TNB Aura believes Eratani’s farmer-centric approach led by a mission-driven team is key to accelerate the transformation of sustainable food security in Indonesia.”
Since their 2021 launch, Eratani has quickly garnered traction. The team managed to onboard more than 10,000 fostered farmers across the island of Java, managing a total of 8,000 hectares of land and supporting the production of more than 52,000 tons of rice within a year of operating.
With their recent funding, Eratani is set to scale their operations further as they continue to digitize agricultural processes, perfect their farming management programs to best suit farmers’ needs, strengthen the team’s core operations, and expand to new areas in Indonesia.
Eratani will also be maximizing their ongoing collaborations with the government. Through their involvement with the Ministry of Communications and Informatics’ Startup Studio Indonesia and through their partnership with the Agricultural Ministry of Indonesia and the Indonesian State Logistics Agency (BULOG), the Eratani team is set to receive further support in developing Indonesia’s agricultural ecosystem, strengthening their mission to enable food independence in Indonesia.
“It has been amazing to see the impact Eratani is already making in the lives of our very own farmers. With the traction, funding, and support we’ve received, the Eratani team is eager to continue our journey in building the ecosystem our country’s farmers deserve,” stated Andrew Soeherman, Eratani CEO.
Through this funding, Eratani projects to empower more than 50,000 fostered farmers by the end of 2024, pushing the team well towards their goal of strengthening and transforming Indonesia into a strong agricultural nation.
For more information, visit eratani.co.id.
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About Eratani
Eratani is an agritech company that provides an end-to-end farming management program to Indonesian farmers. Eratani provides their farmers one-stop access to agri-financing, agri input to agri output solutions. Eratani was founded on June 11, 2021, by Andrew Soeherman (CEO of Eratani), Kevin Juan Tanggo Laksono (COO of Eratani), and Angles Gani (CSO of Eratani).