Fresh off its $1.6M seed round led by the Fast Logistics Group and CVC Capital Partners, MySuki recently announced that it is now in 16 of the 17 regions in the country, thus officially making it the Online Grocery platform with the largest footprint in the Philippines. The company is now on track to reach P4B in annualized Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) this year.
Founded in 2019, MySuki empowers provincial Grocers to go online to serve Sari-sari stores. It is now used by established rural Grocery brands such as Prince of VisMin, Super 8 in Luzon, CitiMart of Batangas, Cheers of Isabela, Gaisano of Cebu and Cagayan De Oro, BudgetWise in Zamboanga, Red Camia of Tarlac, along with more than twenty other provincial grocery chains.
“We built MySuki with the aim of keeping our local grocery chains competitive in the omni-channel retail landscape. A local grocery chain, no matter how strong the brand, can quickly get eaten up by aggressive online competition, well-funded national chains, and progressive local competitors if they don’t adapt”, noted Victor Javier, CEO and founder of MySuki. Javier is a “serial tech-entrepreneur”, having founded four other successful local and international retail technology companies.
Making Tech Available for Rural Grocery Chains
While the big national grocery brands have in-house IT teams to build their own e-commerce apps, most local grocers do not have similar resources whether in time, budget or organization. MySuki provides a platform that enables local grocers to engage in e-commerce in a matter of days.
Through MySuki, grocers have a full suite of tools to thrive in the new retail landscape. MySuki helps local grocery chains digitize their entire e-commerce operation – from accepting online orders, to an efficient picking and check-out process, to managing deliveries. The platform provides relevant dashboards and reports for management and operations. It also has a built-in micro-financing module and integrations with retailers Point of Sale and Loyalty Programs.
The Sari-sari store network
The MySuki mobile app is used by Sari-sari Stores for reordering basic goods from their favorite local grocers. It is purposefully designed to be simple and intuitive, which makes it ideal for low internet areas.
“We decided that the sari-sari store network would be one of the cornerstones of our operations, since they are the backbone of our country’s retail ecosystem. These are the stores in which communities actually gather around,” explained MySuki co-founder Ivan Lanuza. “Nearly all Filipinos grew up with at least one favorite sari-sari store, therefore we have made it part of our mission to help these stores come onboard the online revolution. What better way to do that to connect them to our favorite local grocers?”, he added. Prior to MySuki, Lanuza held an IT Director Position in Procter & Gamble and the Chief Information Officer role in Puregold Price Club.
As of last estimate, there are over a million sari-sari stores operating throughout the country, with 60% of fast moving consumer goods passing through these neighborhood stores annually.
Collaboration as a Strategy
As competition in the online grocery space heats up, MySuki believes empowering the existing local grocer infrastructure is the way to go.
CEO Javier expounds: “In the future, the platforms that know how to partner and collaborate are the ones that will thrive. In everything we do, we push ourselves to add value to grocers and to sari-sari stores. We choose to collaborate with them versus competing with them. Even the investors we work with are handpicked – we went with those who can provide us with insights on how to add value to the local grocer market from logistics providers to retail industry pioneers.”
Together with Fast Logistics Group’s William Chiongbian II and CVC Capital Partners’ Brice Cu, MySuki is backed by local investors including Chris Po of the Century Pacific Group and other retail industry pioneers, as well as international investors from Korea and Singapore.
The MySuki mobile App can be downloaded from Apple Appstore, Google PlayStore, or Huawei Gallery.
