Kopi Kenangan's cheap-coffee bet pays off: first profit in 2025, IPO talks in 2026

Grab-and-go coffee chain selling local-bean espresso drinks at about Rp22,000 through small kiosks and an ordering app across six countries.

Indonesians would switch from cheap instant coffee to affordable freshly brewed coffee if a grab-and-go chain priced it at half the premium cafés and sold via an app.

Started with Rp150M (~US$10K) in 2017; US$109M Series B (2020) and US$96M Series C (2021) pushed valuation past US$1B

Founder Edward Tirtanata's earlier tea chain failed, and he saw a gap between expensive international coffee chains and low-quality street instant coffee. In August 2017 he, James Prananto and Cynthia Chaerunnisa pooled Rp150M and opened the first grab-and-go stall in Jakarta's Kuningan district.

Growth was fast: 324 stores by mid-2020, a US$109M Series B led by Sequoia Capital, then a US$96M Series C in 2021 led by Tybourne Capital at a valuation above US$1B — Southeast Asia's first F&B unicorn. The group then diversified into bread, fried chicken, burgers and premium and value brands, and its net loss widened 70% to Rp452.2B in 2022. From 2022 it cut peripheral projects and refocused on core coffee, expanding abroad: Malaysia 2022, Singapore 2023, the Philippines 2024, and India and Australia 2025 — reaching 1,324 stores across six countries by end-2025.

In 2025 Kopi Kenangan posted its first full-year group profit: US$17M net on US$184M revenue, up 45%, with 1.5 million monthly transacting app users. In July 2026 it was in early IPO talks with banks, weighing a Singapore listing at a valuation of up to US$1B.

The price wedge was real: half the price of premium chains and far better quality than Rp5,000 street instant coffee, with a meme-able product name that spread the brand.

The grab-and-go format and app ordering kept unit economics lean, so the model scaled from one stall to hundreds of stores.

Easy capital caused scope creep — six brands at once — and the 2022 loss forced a return to focus, which is what produced the 2025 profit.

The app became the moat: 1.5 million monthly active users generated nearly half of sales and fed measured store expansion.

A sharp price-and-format wedge can out-compete incumbents, but easy capital tempts over-expansion; the recovery came from cutting peripheral brands and making the app the growth engine.

As of September 2026 the chain is privately held and scaling: 1,324 stores in six countries at end-2025, roughly 550 more planned for 2026, and a group target of US$29M net profit for 2026. The IPO exploration is preliminary — no banks formally appointed, and Tirtanata has said the company is not committed to listing in 2026. It opened its first Taipei store in April 2026 and says its goal is to make Indonesian coffee a global consumer brand, not a commodity.