The key players in SEA’s agritech space

Agriculture is a key sector in Southeast Asia, with the industry contributing around 17% of the region’s gross domestic product (GDP).

That said, problems such as loan sharks, low-quality agriculture inputs, lack of education, and a fragmented supply chain make the process for farmers in the region difficult. In Indonesia, most smallholder farmers earn less than a living wage – nine in 10 are impoverished.

Agritech startups have emerged to solve these challenges through tech.

This industry has caught the eye of investors, who have pumped in 2.5x more funding in 2022 than in the year before, Tech in Asia’s data shows. Funding deals nearly doubled in 2022.

This jump isn’t a one off – the sector has been witnessing a consistent growth of over 2x in funding amounts over the last three years.

Indonesian startups dominate Southeast Asia’s agritech sector. The archipelago has produced more agritech firms than all other nations in the region combined, Tech in Asia’s database shows.

This is understandable as agriculture is one of the major contributors to Indonesia’s GDP – accounting for about 13.3% of it in 2021. It also employs a sizable workforce of 40.6 million people – or 15% of the country’s total population – who work in agriculture, forestry, and fishery sectors, as per Indonesian government data in February 2022.

See also: Mapping Indonesia’s key agritech players

Singapore, Southeast Asia’s smallest country by size, has the second-highest number of agritech firms in the region.

After realizing that the city-state imported 90% of its food, the government devised in 2019 the 30-by-30 plan, which aims for the country to produce at least 30% of its nutritional needs by 2030. This has boosted agritech firms in the country.

Given Singapore’s lack of land mass, vertical or rooftop farming has become its most popular agritech startup category – five of its 14 agritech companies are engaged in this field.