CEBU, Philippines — Philippine grab-and-go coffee startup Pickup Coffee has confirmed raising $40 million so far in its latest funding round.
Earlier on Friday, DealStreetAsia reported that the company had secured $30.75 million in fresh funding, based on filings with Singapore’s Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA).
ACRA filings only reflect the equity funding received so far in a round, and the overall funding round could be larger, or have other components such as debt.
Go-Ventures, an investment company backed by Indonesian tech major GoTo, led the Series A1 round. Other investors in the round include DSG Consumer Partners, Gentree Fund, Kickstart Ventures and Antler, according to Pickup’s ACRA filings.
While it is yet to be reflected in the ACRA filings, Singapore-based Venturi Partners said it would join the current round with a $6.5 million investment.
The company is also allotting Series A-2 shares worth $6.5 million to the simple agreement for future equity (SAFE) holders, which include Openspace Ventures, FJ Labs, Kickstart Ventures, Go-Ventures, Saison Capital, Foxmont and DSG Consumer Partners, per its filings.
Along with the new financing, Pickup has added Go-Ventures’s Aditya Kumar and Openspace Ventures Executive Director Gervin Yang as directors to its board.
Upon the close of the Series A1 round and a board-approved increase in its employee stock ownership plan pool, Pickup Coffee will be valued at $130 million.
The startup was founded by Jamie Fernandez and Diego Lorenzo in 2022 and premium coffee lineup, offered at affordable prices. According to its website, its coffee prices start from 50 Philippine pesos (90 cents) and do not exceed 100 pesos. A cup of specialty coffee in the Philippines typically costs between 100 and 190 pesos at popular coffee shop chains such as Starbucks, UCC Cafe, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, and Tim Hortons.
Pickup Coffee raised $1 million in seed funding from Tiger Global Management and Reshape Ventures last year. It is backed by several prominent angel investors, including Kumu founder and CEO Roland Ros, Antifragile Ventures, Sachin Bhanot (Prosus Ventures), Abram Suhardiman (Healthway Medical Group), Keong Hann Yeoh (YTL Group), Netflix APAC Vice President Anthony Zameczkowski and Mark Sng (Gentree).
The company began as a delivery-only brand serving locations around Metro Manila. It has since expanded to physical stores — small stalls that resemble food trucks — where customers can pick up their beverages or drink them on-site at outdoor tables. The company now has more than 60 branches around the Philippines. Its menu includes classics such as cappuccino and latte, as well as signature brews such as Nutellatte, Ube Latte and Avo Latte.
The company joins a growing list of coffee startups trying to challenge the dominance of pricey coffee outlets in the country. In Cebu City, coffee startup Don Macchiatos has garnered attention by offering a cup of coffee for as little as 39 pesos. The company targets students, working people and coffee lovers on a tight budget.
According to publicly available data, coffee consumption in the Philippines stood at about 3.3 million 60-kilogram bags in 2020-21. The country has been one of the largest markets for soluble coffee, also known as instant coffee, since 2011.
For the original story from DealStreetAsia, click here.
DealStreetAsia is a financial news site based in Singapore that focuses on private equity, venture capital and corporate investment activity in Asia, especially Southeast Asia, India and greater China. Nikkei owns a majority stake in the company.