Ordering food every day is pricey. Especially for Indonesia's middle class, who'd rather buy their daily meals at street stalls instead to keep things affordable.

Until UENA! This startup cooks and delivers meals for just 15,000 IDR (yup, that's ~$1). Now, they've just raised new funding co-led by East Ventures and Trihill Capital!

• Launched in August 2022, they have opened seven kitchen locations in Jakarta and served over 300,000 portions.
• They last raised a seed round in late 2022.

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🍽️ An affordable online food court

UENA's here to serve daily meals to the mass market: Indonesia's middle class. They keep it all affordable, reliable and accessible!

They're not competing with services like GrabFood or restaurants. They compete with streetside vendors.

• The problem? Each vendor has different levels of quality, reliability, hygiene and price. Oh, and they have limited (and varying) menu items too.

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👨🏻‍🍳 What's cookin'?

They operate small tech-powered hyperlocal cloud kitchens that serve a nearby radius of just 1-1.5km!

• 80% of their orders come from direct channels like their UENA app or WhatsApp number.
• Each kitchen requires low capital and is quick to set up.

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💭 Now, how else do they keep prices low?

• In-house. All deliveries are handled internally, minimizing delivery cost and delivery time — with orders typically arriving around 15 minutes post-order.
• A few simple dishes! Since they're offering daily meals, people return to the same basic staple dishes like chicken with rice and fried rice. It's a limited menu with high order volumes, meaning UENA can save $$$ through streamlining operations and procuring supplies in bulk.

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🔜 What's next?

They'll keep expanding to more locations in Jakarta. Oh, and they'll also be adding more menu items to influence customers to have repeat orders multiple times each day and multiple days throughout the week!