• Singapore’s The GrowHub successfully raised USD $3 million in a Pre-Series B round led by its CEO and Founder, Lester Chan  

• The GrowHub enables transparency and trust for producers of premium products by using Web-3, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning.  
• Its current customers include brands like ManukaLife Honey, tangobar, Dirty Clean Food Oatmilk, and Koufuku Granola 
• The company takes aim at reducing food fraud, a US$40-50 billion a year problem (AgriFutures Australia, 2021) 

The GrowHub, Asia’s Pacific leading trust and traceability technology provider for the supply chain, announced that it has closed a USD $3 million Pre-Series B round from a number of strategic individual investors, including the company’s CEO and Founder, Lester Chan. The fresh funds will be used to continue to build The GrowHub’s technology offerings and strengthen its technology capabilities as it further expands across the Asia Pacific region. On top of the additional funding raised, it has also announced the official appointment of Chai Chun Kiat as CTO and Aaron Loo Jian Lin as Chief Innovation Officer along with Sam Yen Rong Jiun who will be joining The GrowHub’s advisory board. 

The GrowHub began as a farm-to-table solutions provider and a strategic export partner of premium goods from producers looking to reach new audiences in Southeast Asia and beyond. Over the years, it has shifted its technology focus to enable producers and consumers to track, market, and understand consumer behavior and patterns using the company’s proprietary Web-3, NFC, and QR code solutions. Consumers across the Asia Pacific are able to interact with these products in their native language, understand products more intimately and engage with relevant advertisements. In a short span of time, it has transformed the supply chain experience for both businesses and shoppers in countries like Singapore, Australia, Japan, Indonesia, and Malaysia by incorporating authenticity and traceability.  

In addition to tracking the footprint of food from producer to consumer, The GrowHub also facilitates transparency and reliability in tracing carbon credits with its SaaS platform. The company allows producers, funders, and regulators to differentiate and authenticate carbon footprint at source, with initial use cases deployed around soil carbon market integrations. The GrowHub focuses on the flow and user experience between the network of retailers, distributors, producers, and end-consumers in a fast, secure, credible, and accessible manner. 

Lester Chan, CEO and Founder of The GrowHub shared, “We are always looking for ways to adapt and tailor our offerings in the market according to producers’ and customer’s needs, with a view of mitigating global trust problems around food production, supply chains, and carbon traceability. With the deeper enhancements to our technology framework, I am confident in its abilities to value-aid in the holistic supply chain landscape. We have taken the Web 3.0 approach differently in our business operations while adhering to the fundamentals of blockchain and AI solutions. By re-innovating traditional processes, we look forward to providing consumers with elevated supply chain experiences.”  

“We are delighted to receive an initial close of our Pre-Series B round to continue building the dream of a more transparent world, where consumers can trust what they see on a label, and where food waste is minimised,” added Lester.  

The GrowHub’s proprietary blockchain technology has secured all products that have been onboarded in the company’s portfolio, including leading brands like ManukaLife Honey, tangobar, Dirty Clean Food Oatmilk, Koufuku Granola. To date, it has reached hundreds of thousands of user interactions per month growing at 20 percent. The GrowHub closed 2022 with an estimated revenue of US$750, 000 and is expected to grow this figure by four times by the end of its fiscal year. 

To support this, the company has made key appointments in its leadership team. The three appointments are Chai Chun Kiat, Chief Technology Officer of The GrowHub, Aaron Loo Jian Lin, Chief Innovation Officer of The GrowHub, and Sam Yen Rong Jiun, Board Advisor of The GrowHub.  

Leading the technology team at The GrowHub is Chief Technology Officer Chai Chun Kiat  who joins the company following a series of tech leadership roles. He was previously a CTO at Gorila Mobile and Technology Lead at AL2 where he designed and developed solutions for real-world challenges using practical applications of blockchain and Web3. Meanwhile, Loo currently spearheads product development and leads The GrowHub’s research & development team. Prior to this, he was a COO at Gorilla Networks, the world’s first telco in the metaverse, pioneering blockchain-centric telco solutions. Aaron also had a stint at Bit Beta as an operations director and was a product manager at DeClout. 

Yen brings 25 years of experience in sales, marketing, project management, and implementation in Manufacturing, Government, Telco, and Financial Institutions. Yen was previously a Vice President at the Bank of America where he focused on global commercial and corporate investment banking technologies. He is currently a Senior Account Director at Tibco Singapore, Chairman at Singapore Computer Society for Opensource Chapter, and is also a co-founder of CryptoAI Ventures. Yen’s in-depth crypto and blockchain knowledge and network as an entrepreneur at Crypto AI will help solidify The GrowHub’s Web 3.0  solutions. 

Chai Chun Kiat, CTO of The GrowHub, added, “As consumers become more conscious of the source and impact of their purchases, the role of technology such as Web3 and AI in enabling transparency and traceability will become increasingly crucial for both consumers and producers.” 

Last month, The GrowHub and the Food Innovation Precinct Western Australia (FIPWA) officially opened its faculty hub which will serve as a research and development site, business accelerator, and commercialization platform for agritech businesses. In 2022, The GrowHub announced that it signed a lease to take over the tenancy of the hub to establish the GrowHub Innovation Center and data hub to offer a direct pathway for Asia Pacific players to implement their solutions. Moving forward, the company aims to offer wider access to trusted premium products at affordable cost through the development of new emerging technologies at FIPWA’s hub.  

The GrowHub has seen tremendous growth in the past year following its successful SaaS technology initiatives. Since its operational launch, the company has aimed to partner with leading companies in the region and add to its ecosystem network to make emerging technologies available regardless of size. 

About The GrowHub Innovations Company 

The GrowHub Innovations Company (www.thegrowhub.co) is Asia Pacific’s only Web 3-enabled technology plug-and-play ecosystem builder focusing on food traceability and carbon credits. The GrowHub has strong and exclusive relations with the government bodies in Western Australia and Singapore – Food Innovation Precinct Western Australia (FIPWA) and PEEL Development, Shire of Murray. Currently, in eight markets across Australia and Asia Pacific, The GrowHub offers access to trusted premium products at affordable rates through the development of new agri-food and blockchain technologies emerging from our innovation centre at FIPWA. With the capital, network, and expertise, we use technology to improve the experience of “farm-to-fork.” From crunching data to enable producers to improve yields, to leveraging statistics to enable better transportation of produce, to the information on the quality of food you pay for at the table, our blockchain technology allows for full food traceability across the supply chain – so that you can trust in the food you eat. To find out more about GrowHub please visit: https://thegrowhub.co/