Indonesia-based micro-warehousing solutions startup Crewdible announced that they have raised US$1.5 million in a pre-Series A funding round led by Berlin-based Global Founders Capital (GFC), a stage agnostic, globally oriented seed and growth venture capital firm. In a press statement, Crewdible chief executive officer and founder Dhana Galindra said that the startup will use the newly acquired funds to build a stronger, firmer presence in major cities across Indonesia, raise its marketing efforts and innovate and improve its platform to further serve its clients and better manage the increasing traffic.
Dhana Galindra further added: “We already have a strong team. With very little money we raised in the seed round, we managed to get so much done. Now with a big VC like GFC backing us up, we are extremely excited to turbocharge the business.”
The Indonesian-based startup’s latest funding round is preceded by a seed funding round held in September last year where it managed to raise funds from angel investors. Since the initial seed round the company has grown at a tremendous rate, as according to Crewdible’s assertion it grew more than 40 times in just a single year.This eventually led to GFC’s participation in its pre-Series A funding round.
The micro-warehousing startup is also among the five startups selected to participate in Gojek’s first accelerator program, Gojek Xcelerate. The accelerator program was formed through the collaborative efforts of Digitaraya and Gojek, Indonesia’s first Unicorn startup. Gojek Xcelerate provides a world-class curriculum for its participants with experts from McKinsey, UBS Bank, Google Developers Launchpad, as well as the support and guidance of the very people behind Gojek’s successful journey in becoming Southeast Asia’s super app.
GFC has backed entrepreneurs and startups from series seed to IPO across the globe. According to the VC firm, they have a global track record of supporting founders and startups throughout the lifecycle, from day zero through all the stages of growth, through their platform. Some of the companies they have backed and supported are Lazada, Facebook, Zalando, Trivago and Eventbrite.
Through its platform, Crewdible helps connect e-commerce and social media sellers with warehouse partners for storing and keeping their inventories. One key feature of their service is that any empty facility, such as a house, office, shoplot and the like, can be turned into a micro-warehouse. According to Crewdible, doing so means that micro-warehouses can be potentially deployed anywhere, even in expensive and strategic locations. Their service therefore helps reduce fees by eliminating large overhead costs like setup, rental and maintenance fees.
On their company’s business model, Desiree, vice president of marketing at Crewdible, said: “We realised this model is sustainable when existing warehouse partners are requesting to open subsequent warehouses, all we have to make sure is to drive enough traffic.”
The Indonesian-based logistics startup partners with office and homeowners who possess free space to make fulfillment warehouses. By transforming existing homes and offices into micro-warehouses, Crewdible provides very affordable micro-warehousing solutions to small-to-medium enterprises and helps them reduce their operational costs. This in turn helps companies to be more flexible in their business approach.
