The archive · Commerce & Marketplaces · Strategic decision · 2022–2026
Baskit: serving Indonesia's middlemen builds a profitable 60-brand distribution OS
Jakarta's Baskit (2022) sells software and embedded finance to wholesalers instead of bypassing them: 60+ brands, 18 months profitable, US$4.4M Series A.
Baskit
What the business is
Baskit is a Jakarta-based B2B platform that helps consumer-goods brands run offline distribution in Indonesia, coordinating distributors, wholesalers and retailers while embedding credit and payments into the supply chain.
Starting capital：US$1.5M round in early 2023; US$3.3M seed (Jun 2023); US$4.4M Series A first close (Apr 2026) — US$9.9M total equity, plus a US$3M revolving credit facility from HSBC Innovation Banking.
How it started
Yann Schuermans, who led M&A at AB InBev and had a family background in distribution, founded Baskit in 2022 in Jakarta with Yoonjung Yi (ex-AB InBev FMCG) and COO Abhishek Pansari (ex-Ula). His view: supply chains make up 40–50% of Southeast Asian GDP, and although e-commerce was growing, more than 90% of trade still flowed through offline networks of wholesalers and retailers — so the durable bet was to digitize the middlemen, not cut them out.
What happened
Baskit raised US$1.5M in early 2023 and US$3.3M in June 2023 from Betatron, Forge, 1982, Investible, DS/X, Orvel and Michael Sampoerna, growing from about 50 wholesalers in West Java to a multi-category network. In April 2026 it closed a US$4.4M first close of its Series A led by Cento Ventures with Kaya Founders, Analog Ventures and Orvel Ventures — taking total equity to US$9.9M — plus a US$3M HSBC Innovation Banking facility, and announced the Philippines as its first market outside Indonesia.
How it ended up
Scaling with unusual discipline: Baskit says it has been consistently profitable for the 18 months before April 2026, works with 60+ brands and hundreds of distributors and wholesalers, lists with Alfamart, Circle K and Boots, and is entering the Philippines while layering embedded credit with partners including Visa.
Background
Baskit is a Jakarta-based platform that digitizes Indonesia's offline distribution of consumer goods. Its bet is contrarian to the region's D2C boom: with more than 90% of trade still flowing through wholesalers and traditional retailers, the company sells software, sourcing services and embedded financing to middlemen instead of trying to remove them from the chain.
Founder and CEO Yann Schuermans brought AB InBev M&A experience and a family distribution background; co-founders Yoonjung Yi and Abhishek Pansari added FMCG and Indonesian startup operating experience. After a US$1.5M round in early 2023, Baskit raised US$3.3M in June 2023 from investors including Betatron, Forge and 1982 — covered by TechCrunch — and scaled from about 50 wholesalers in West Java to working with more than 60 brands and hundreds of distributors across general trade and modern retail such as Alfamart, Circle K and Boots.
In April 2026 Baskit closed the US$4.4M first close of its Series A led by Cento Ventures, bringing total equity to US$9.9M and adding a US$3M HSBC Innovation Banking credit facility. The company says it has been profitable for 18 months, and its next move is the Philippines — its first market outside Indonesia — while it develops embedded credit and payments on top of the inventory data its software produces.
What has to be true
- Distribution-first thesis: with 90%+ of trade offline, Baskit bet the value sat with middlemen who already own retailer relationships, not with a D2C app.
- Trust wedge: Schuermans's AB InBev background and distribution-family roots let Baskit operate inside the chain — listings, stocking, reconciliation — before selling software.
- Data-before-credit: inventory visibility let Baskit underwrite working-capital financing that banks and P2P lenders could not assess, turning software into a lending moat.
- Cost discipline: claiming profitability within about 18 months and raising a first-close Series A contrasts with the subsidized warung-digitization plays that burned capital.
- Portable playbook: the Philippines entry tests whether an operationally heavy model built in Java travels before software and finance scale regionally.
What can be applied
Middlemen are infrastructure, not waste: digitize the relationship layer that already owns retail trust, then finance from the data; profitability beats subsidized growth.
Aftermath
As of 2026-04-20 Baskit was private and scaling: it claims 18 months of consistent profitability, works with 60+ brands and hundreds of distributors across Indonesia, and had just closed the US$4.4M first close of its Series A (Cento Ventures led) plus a US$3M HSBC Innovation Banking facility. Its next step is the Philippines — its first market outside Indonesia — testing whether an operationally heavy model built in Java travels, while embedded credit with Visa deepens. The open risk is that replicating in-market operations is harder to scale than software.
Sources
- Supply chain startup Baskit supports Indonesia's middlemen
- Indonesia's supply chain growth platform Baskit raises $4.4M Series A to expand Southeast Asia operations
- 1982 backed Baskit raises US$4.4 mil series A led by Cento Ventures
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