Warung Pintar raised over $35m in a year to transform Asia’s mom-and-pop stores

Photo credit: Warung Pintar

In Indonesia and Malaysia, it’s called a warung. In the Philippines, it’s a sari-sari store. Across much of India, it’s called a kirana store.

Whatever they’re called locally, you’ll find them throughout Asia: small, typically family-run kiosks located by the roadside or on the sidewalk. They sell basics like snacks and drinks as well as household groceries, tobacco products, and mobile phone credit.

These micro-entrepreneurial general stores have been a fixture in Asian communities since time immemorial and are a cornerstone of local economies. As digitalization in the region surges ahead, one Indonesian startup is making sure warung owners are able to keep up with the pace of change – and it has raised US$35.5 million funding in the space of just one year to do it.

Grassroots growth

“I believe that economic growth in Indonesia lies in the grassroots population and starts with the warung,” says Agung Bezharie Hadinegoro, co-founder and CEO at Warung Pintar.

The startup, whose name translates to “smart kiosk,” is bringing the roadside stall online by incorporating a variety of tech solutions, from digital payments and inventory software to data analytics and blockchain.

In mid-2017, Hadinegoro was an associate with Jakarta-based VC firm East Ventures. He and fellow associates Kevin Cayha – now CEO at robo-advisor Lubna – and Melisa Irene, who became the firm’s first female partner earlier this year, were helping set up venues for its internally incubated co-working provider EV Hive (now known as CoHive). [Disclosure: East Ventures is an investor in Tech in Asia. See our statement of ethics for more information.]

“We were renovating a location, and a warung owner on the sidewalk near the area was afraid of being evicted and losing their only source of livelihood,” he tells Tech in Asia. Willson Cuaca – managing partner at East Ventures and now chairman of Warung Pintar – sensed opportunity in the idea of digitizing Indonesia’s mom-and-pop stores.

“We offered them to move the warung inside [the property’s carpark], and we started to learn more about the warung business,” Hadinegoro adds.

A Warung Pintar “smart kiosk” / Photo credit: East Ventures

With EV Hive exec Harya Putra – now chief operating officer at Warung Pintar – Hadinegoro interacted with the warung keeper and began to better understand the challenges such business owners faced.

“We learned that for the past 10 years or so, warung have had very little chance to grow and increase their business capabilities,” he says. “We also realized that many opportunities could begin at the warung – which has [long] been part of Indonesian culture – with the help of technology.”

Exiting the carpark

Warung Pintar became East Ventures’ second internal incubation project following EV Hive. Cayha was put in charge of developing a prototype prefabricated kiosk and slide deck before Hadinegoro took over as CEO in September 2017.

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