Filipino technology startup Packworks has formally launched its Mobile Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platform for sari-sari stores following a successful US$2M seed round. Leading end-to-end logistic group Fast Group and global private equity firm CVC Capital Partners led the said seed round, with participation from ADB Ventures, Arise, Techstars, and IdeaSpace Foundation.
“We bootstrapped our way to helping 150,000 sari-sari stores. We’re helping communities all over the Philippines to grow and become more resilient. Imagine how many more we can help with all these awesome partners. Our vision is now global. We think of ourselves as the railway or expressway infrastructure and not as the gas station or fast food shop operator. We expand partnerships to provide these services to our stores, such as inventory financing, e-payments, and micro-insurance,” according to Ibba Bernardo, Co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Packworks.
Packworks will use the fresh funding to develop “The Pack: SuperStore App”, increase the breadth of offerings, and improve its user journey. The startup also plans to establish a department that directly engages the sari-sari stores, provide additional services with partners, and to build an open platform for financial institutions and brands to connect directly with store owners.
“We have raised funds to help us expand our talent pool and boost our bandwidth to provide more to these store owners. We believe that our product offers an excellent upside,” said Bing Tan, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Packworks.
Founded in 2018 with initial five sari-sari store-partners, Packworks worked on its way to having a 150,000 network nationwide and targets to have at least 220,000 stores by the end of the current year and 500,000 by the end of 2023.
The technology startup aims to become a platform for other institutions that would like to help address the challenges faced by sari-sari stores by enabling the value chain and empowering all the involved parties within the sari-sari ecosystem.
“At Fast, we constantly search for ways to improve our country’s supply chain. The over 1 million sari-sari stores in the Philippines are a critical component of this chain, and we believe that an immense opportunity exists to build a digital layer to connect these stores with customers and suppliers. Layering Packworks’ digital fabric to this network and leveraging its emerging data has exciting prospects for creating supply chain efficiencies, especially when combined with the experience and national scale of Fast. We are happy to partner with Bing, Ibba, Hubert and the dedicated team at Packworks to empower more micro-entrepreneurs and transform the way they do commerce,” said Brice Cu, Senior Managing Director and Country Head of Philippines for CVC Capital Partners and Board Member of Fast Group.
The Sari-preneurs Companion
Through “The Pack: SuperStore App”, sari-sari store owners can process their business’ inventory, bookkeeping, and data collection. They can also avail of financial products and order supplies for a lower price among the Packworks partner companies.
The app is designed with ease of use even in low-bandwidth scenarios, its light footprint will allow the users to manage their businesses more efficiently with the goal of addressing the high cost of poverty — where store owners pay the highest interest rates and pay more for consumer goods. At the same time, the app also aims to bring down the interest cost in handling money by giving access to e-payments.
The journey of Packworks started with friends bringing solar panels to isolated communities. Founders Hubert Yap, Bing Tan, and Ibba Bernardo came up with the idea of helping micro-entrepreneurs by bringing scalable and accessible technology to them. As a solution for multinational companies in the Philippines to connect with neighborhood stores in 2018, the following year saw Packworks’ nationwide rollout with only 220 stores with a gross merchandise value (GMV) of US$400,000. After a year, it gathered 27,828 stores with GMV of US$30M, and it reached 130,000 stores with GMV of US$139M in 2021.