BerryKitchen boxes up delicious $1.25M series A funding to expand catering services

Indonesian culinary venture BerryKitchen announced today it raised a US$1.25 million series A funding round led by US-based Sovereign’s Capital and followed by existing investor East Ventures. With the fresh funds, BerryKitchen aims to increase the number of food packages delivered daily by five-fold within a year, and also plans to expand its geographic reach.

BerryKitchen is a Jakarta-based catering service that lets users order a variety of lunch boxes online. Payments are based on a credit system: users open an account and buy a certain amount of credit points. These credits are then used up to select a meal combination every day.

The technology that allows BerryKitchen to scale while remaining lean on the operational side is what convinced Sovereign’s Capital to invest in the startup, said Luke Roush, co-founder and managing principal of the VC firm, in a statement. “We believe that this concept is something that a lot of Jakartans are looking for – high-quality food, at a reasonable price, delivered right to your doorstep,” Roush added. Sovereign’s Capital is a VC and private equity firm that focuses on early growth-stage companies, usually with US$1 million to US$10 million in revenue.

See US-based Sovereign’s Capital sets up in Jakarta, welcomes early growth-stage companiesBerryKitchen is currently delivering some 1,300 lunch boxes in Jakarta daily, mostly to young executives who eat lunch at or nearby the office “We realize that eating out for lunch can be costly, but not everyone has the privilege to bring their own home-cooked meals,” says Cynthia Tenggara, CEO of BerryKitchen. “So we decided to help solve that problem for them – by providing tasty, healthy food, with affordable prices.”

The startup has also recently launched a new “ready-to-cook” feature, which sends fresh and pre-portioned ingredients along with a recipe to those who enjoy cooking at home. With this option, users don’t have to do grocery shopping on their own. Ready-to-cook was popularized in the US by services like Blue Apron, and now Indonesian startups are starting to test the concept.

Beyond BerryKitchen, startups like Papa Bento, GorryGourmet, BlekrosDiet are also offering boxed lunches, while Black Garlic delivers ready-to-cook groceries packages in Indonesia.

To achieve its projected growth targets and KPIs, BerryKitchen plans to increase its number of kitchens so that its coverage area can increase from just certain parts of the city to cover the entire capital.

The startup will also use the funds to further build out both the operational and tech teams, as well as complete certification processes, such as halal certification. This will help BerryKitchen cater to more people and to comply with hygiene and quality standards for all its products.