The archive · Commerce & Marketplaces · Financial decision · 2021–2025
Eratani's $6.2M bet: one end-to-end platform wins Indonesia's rice farmers
Ex-Gojek Andrew Soeherman's Eratani claims 34,000+ farmers and 13,000 ha served, closing its Series A as Indonesian agritech funding collapses.
Eratani
What the business is
Jakarta-based, end-to-end platform for rice smallholders: working-capital financing, agricultural inputs with agronomist guidance, field data, and output sales to rice millers.
Starting capital：Oversubscribed $3.8M seed (Dec 2022, led by TNB Aura with AgFunder, Trihill Capital and B.I.G. Ventures) and a $6.2M Series A (April 2025, led by Clay Capital with TNB Aura, SBI Ven Capital, AgFunder, Genting Ventures and IIX).
How it started
Eratani was founded in Jakarta in 2021 by Andrew Soeherman, a former Gojek executive whose family worked in agriculture, with Kevin Laksono and Angles Gani. Soeherman saw that about 29% of Indonesia's workforce farms but most smallholders are isolated from financing, inputs and buyers, and that most agritech startups only served the downstream half of the cycle.
What happened
The company grew from an upstream input business into an end-to-end management platform: Agri Financing, Agri Inputs with agronomist support, and Agri Output, a market-price channel to rice millers. An oversubscribed $3.8M seed round closed in December 2022, when Eratani reported more than 10,000 farmers managing 8,000 hectares; by its April 2025 Series A it claimed 34,000+ farmers across Java and Sulawesi, 13,000+ hectares, 600 agri-kiosks and 70 rice milling units, with yields up 29% and incomes up 25% in 2024.
How it ended up
As of 2025-04-20 Eratani is scaling on a $6.2M Series A led by Singapore's Clay Capital, with participation from TNB Aura, SBI Ven Capital, AgFunder, Genting Ventures and IIX. The raise came as Indonesian agritech fundraising slumped after the eFishery collapse, and the company says it will focus on precision agriculture, on-farm mechanization and sustainable practices rather than rapid expansion.
Background
Eratani is a Jakarta-based platform connecting Indonesia's smallholder rice farmers to financing, agricultural inputs, agronomy advice and markets. It was founded in 2021 by Andrew Soeherman, a former Gojek executive from an agricultural family, with Kevin Laksono and Angles Gani, after Soeherman watched farmers borrow to buy supplies at roughly 20% monthly interest and repay after harvest.
Most Indonesian agritech startups served farmers downstream; Eratani instead built three connected services — Agri Financing for working capital, Agri Inputs with agronomist recommendations, and Agri Output, a market-price channel that sells harvests to rice millers — betting that smallholders would commit to one platform managing the whole cycle.
The model grew quietly first: an oversubscribed $3.8M seed in December 2022 led by TNB Aura, when Eratani reported more than 10,000 farmers managing 8,000 hectares. By April 2025 it claimed 34,000+ farmers across Java and Sulawesi, 13,000+ hectares, 600 agri-kiosks and 70 rice millers, with yields up 29% and incomes up 25% in 2024.
That April, Eratani closed a $6.2M Series A led by Singapore's Clay Capital with TNB Aura, SBI Ven Capital, AgFunder, Genting Ventures and IIX — notable because Indonesian agritech funding had slumped after the eFishery fraud collapse. The company says it will spend on precision agriculture, mechanization and sustainable cultivation rather than rapid expansion, in line with Indonesia's rice self-sufficiency push.
What has to be true
- Input credit at roughly 20% monthly interest is the trap that keeps smallholders poor, so replacing it with data-backed financing is the entry point farmers feel (TechCrunch, 2022-12-13).
- End-to-end coverage — credit, inputs, agronomy and miller sales — makes Eratani the connective tissue in a fragmented rice chain instead of a one-point solution (Digital News Asia).
- Company-reported results — 34,000+ farmers, 13,000+ ha, yields up 29% and incomes up 25% in 2024 — gave Series A investors something to diligence (TNB Aura).
- A $6.2M Series A led by Clay Capital closed even as Indonesian agritech funding collapsed after eFishery, showing differentiated platforms could still raise (ImpactAlpha).
What can be applied
Beat the informal lender before chasing the farm: Eratani replaced 20%-a-month input credit with data-backed financing, and every other service hangs off that first trust decision.
Aftermath
As of 2025-04-20 Eratani is scaling a $6.2M Series A in a sector investors had just abandoned: after eFishery's collapse, Indonesian agritech fundraising dried up, and Digital News Asia framed Eratani's raise as proof that platforms with concrete farmer outcomes could still attract capital. The farmer and hectare numbers are self-reported, and the bet remains unproven at national scale; the company says it is focused on durable growth in critical rice districts rather than fast expansion.
Sources
- Indonesian agritech startup Eratani secures $6.2m Series A round
- Eratani secures US$6.2 million Series A to boost Indonesia's agricultural transformation
- Eratani nabs $6.2 million to provide digital services and financing to Indonesia's small rice farmers
- Eratani supports Indonesia's farmers through the entire growing process
spotted an error? The archive wants to know.
Your turn
You just read one. Describe what you are building, and see who is betting on the same thing.
Free account · 3 free questions · no card