5 January 2024
Under the Radar: Battle of the coffee chains - Kopi Kenangan’s Co-CEO James Prananto on the firm’s recipe to thrive in Singapore; future IPO plans
It’s already Friday and what better way to end the afternoon than with a good cup of coffee or Kopi.
Speaking of coffee, you might have seen quite a number of new coffee chains sprouting in sunny Singapore, including several chains who have made their names in other parts of the world such as Indonesia and China.
And we’re going to speak to one such entrant today. Founded in 2017, Kopi Kenangan is a non-franchise tech-enabled coffee chain, where it focuses on serving coffee priced between the higher priced international brands versus the cheaper alternative sold by street vendors.
Fast forward to today, the firm is also one of the fastest growing grab-and-go coffee chains in Indonesia with around 800 stores across over 60 cities in Indonesia.
For one thing, the Sequoia Capital-backed startup served 30 million cups of coffee in the year of 2020 alone.
It also became the first F&B Unicorn in South East Asia in December 2021, following a US$96 million Series C round to help it expand internationally.
True enough, the firm entered into Malaysia and thereafter to Singapore last September. But how will the firm’s positioning strategy in Singapore differ from that in Indonesia given the differences in cost structures?
Also – how does the firm assess the Singapore market, as well as the recent exits of players such as Flash Coffee and Spinelli?
On Under the Radar, The Evening Runway’s finance presenter Chua Tian Tian posed these questions to James Prananto, Co-founder and CEO, Kenangan Coffee.

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