Indonesia's HappyFresh draws half of new funding from Korea

Indonesia's online grocery platform HappyFresh will receive another $33 million from South Korean investors, including the Asian startup fund of Naver Corp. and Mirae Asset Group and Naver's subsidiary LINE Ventures. The amount marked about half of the $65 million it is targeting in the latest funding round.

The Korean institutional investors is betting that the Jakarta-based startup would become the next Grab Holdings Inc., a Southeast ride-hailing app that is preparing for a Nasdaq listing later this year through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company.

They valued HappyFresh at $205 million, according to investment banking sources on Thursday.

For Mirae Asset-NAVER Asia Growth Fund and Japan-based LINE Ventures, their latest participation marked follow-on investments in the Indonesian online platform since they led its series C round funding to raise $20 million in 2019.

This time around, STIC Investments, STIC Ventures, LB Investment and Won & Partners joined as new Korean investors. In particular, STIC Investments and its affiliate STIC ventures are putting $7 million and $3 million each into HappyFresh.

HappyFresh, founded in 2014, is regarded as the Market Kurly, South Korea's leading online grocery delivery service, of Indonesia. Once a shopper picks the items on the app, its motorcycle man delivers them to the front door of the customer at a designated time. If the product in demand is sold out, the customer can find its alternative or exclude the item after chatting with its employee.

It has expanded its coverage into the neighboring countries such as Thailand and Malaysia.

INDONESIA IN FOCUS

South Korean venture capital firms, which had targeted Vietnam outside the home market, shifted towards Indonesia, the highest-income country in Southeast Asia with the world's fourth-largest population at 280 million.

In 2019, Naver-Mirae Growth Fund had invested $50 million in Indonesian e-commerce platform Bukalapak to secure a 0.38% stake. Bukalapak is now seeking to raise over $1 billion in an initial public offering next month in Indonesia's first tech unicorn IPO.

Earlier this month, Naver had invested $150 million in Elang Mahkota Teknologi (Emtek), Indonesia’s largest technology, telecom and media conglomerate.

STIC, one of the most aggressive Korean PEFs, looks set to net a hefty return from its $200 million investment in Grab through an IPO. STIC's other investments included Didi Chuxing, China's ride-hailing platform, which went public in the US last week, as well as Indian food delivery startup Dunzo and Sahyadri Hospitals in India.

Write to Chae-Yeon Kim at why29@hankyung.com
Yeonhee Kim edited this article.