🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

Baskit’s growth is fueled by empowering traditional middlemen

• Baskit backs Indonesia’s distributors and wholesalers rather than trying to replace them 1.
• Its software helps these distribution businesses track inventory and handle orders across a fragmented market with over 200,000 traditional distribution businesses 2.
• The resulting operational data feeds other offerings, including financing for wholesalers that often run on 3% to 7% margins 1.
• This financing came after a US$3.3 million seed round in 2023, which followed a US$1.5 million seed round three months earlier 1.

The ‘digitize, don’t displace’ model is a recurring theme in Baskit’s positioning

• The company pushes against disintermediation, or cutting out middlemen, and leans on intermediaries’ local relationships in fragmented supply chains 2.
• Its approach offers a template for business-to-business (B2B) software companies that want to win operational workflows and gather proprietary data 3.
• That data supports financing for middlemen plus other commercial services, which Baskit calls a hybrid of a software digitization partner and a tightly managed marketplace 1.
• A third-party profile pegged Baskit’s gross margins as similar to software companies, though the source does not attribute that figure directly to Baskit 4.