Listen to this articleBelow is our recent interview with Ami Sugiyama, CEO & Founder of Secai Marche:
Q: Could you provide our readers with a brief introduction to your company?
A: Hi, We are a Farm-to-Table Platform, Established in 2018 in Japan and Malaysia. Secai Marche helps F&B retailers, hotels, restaurants, and cafes to purchase groceries directly from the farmers. We streamline agricultural logistics, making fulfillment more cost-efficient and enabling food businesses to bundle products from different farmers into the same order. We provides more options and varieties to consumers, with Freshness, Transparency and Product Value.
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Q: Any highlights on your recent announcement?
A: Rakuten and Beyond Next Ventures (BNV) invested USD1.5M for our Pre-Series A funding. BNV followed on from last funding, and more, We are very happy to have Rakuten Newly joined us this time. Rakuten is one of the most biggest E-commerce company in Japan, and expanding their business to various field now. Together with their E-commerce knowledge and experiences, our Fulfillment service can be polished more to accelerate expansion.
Q: What can we expect from your company in next 6 months? What are your plans?
A: We plan to use the funds to strengthen its fresh food fulfillment service, hire new talents, and enhance its marketing effort.
Recommended: Q: What is the best thing about your company that people might not know about?
A: Supply chains for fresh produce in the ASEAN is usually operated by the supplier side, which are optimized for bulk deliveries and therefore difficult to use it for small restaurants which typically ask for small orders or niche needs. SECAI MARCHE wants to solve the problem by building a shared supply chain allowing several different food suppliers to use for delivery. We have more than 130 farmers and food producers in Japan and ASEAN, as well as more than 300 restaurants and hotels are using. Our fulfillment service is Japanese standard. Handling perishable items as well as transportations require a lot of detailed work. Japanese Start-ups are not really featured by investors overseas, but we are still here!
