Founded in 2015, Hachi initially started developing a hydroponic urban farming solution for households. Later on, the company pivoted in implementing large scale hydroponic farms on-demand. Hachi has been accelerated by the Vietnam Silicon Valley Accelerator Program in Hanoi (Vietnam) and won multiple awards such as the Lotte startup competition among others.
As the company was at its early stages of development, the value proposition, as well as other key elements of their investment readiness, had not been developed and validated. Many elements like growth metrics, PMF, amongst others were not validated enough for potential repeatability and scalability.
We worked with Hachi on validating their business with proven growth metrics and KPIs, even identifying new and larger segments of the market, which were resulting in better growth performance. With the growth case, FFA supported Hachi on building their investment case, including a complete data room and investment materials, ready to be used for a regional fundraising effort.
“ Working with FFA enabled us to define a clear value proposition as underlying base for our fundraising round and company developments“
“ Working with FFA enabled us to define a clear value proposition as underlying base for our fundraising round and company developments“
Founded in 2015, Hachi initially started developing a hydroponic urban farming solution for households. Later on, the company pivoted in implementing large scale hydroponic farms on-demand. Hachi has been accelerated by the Vietnam Silicon Valley Accelerator Program in Hanoi (Vietnam) and won multiple awards such as the Lotte startup competition among others.
The main problems of Hachi were the following:
1. Value proposition and Investment-readiness
As the company was at its early stages of development, the value proposition, as well as other key elements of their investment readiness, had not been developed and validated. Many elements like growth metrics, PMF, amongst others were not validated enough for potential repeatability and scalability.
2. Unproven growth metrics in a new market
While indoor hydroponic systems were starting to become popular in mature / developed markets, in Vietnam and SEA very few consumers were thinking about installing a hydroponic system at home in order to grow fresh produce for self consumption. The existence of a “big market” was to be proven as a consequence or we had to find a larger market to provide the technology to.
We provided the following as part of our Growth Consulting and IR & Fundraising Consulting Services:
In order to prepare for the company for the demo day and fundraising, we applied the FFA Investment Readiness methodology in order to identify all gaps to be solved by the company prior to contacting potential investors. Some of the gaps were then closed by FFA with ad-hoc support (such as market research & opportunity quantification and competition analysis), while the remaining gaps have been closed by the Hachi team following FFA guidelines.
We supported Hachi in developing and testing the value proposition for the indoor farming device in Vietnam – translating it into content for the website, the product brochures and the outreach material. During the first growth execution, we focused on testing the value proposition with the target clients and supporting Hachi to identify and categorize the key elements that were hindering the company growth.
Following the evidence collected from the market during the growth setup and testing phase, the company realized the market was not ready for such an innovative product. Therefore, they decided to pivot into building hydroponic farming on-demand for clients. The pivot has proven successful, enabling the company to scale considerably in terms of revenues.
We provided Hachi with the idea of a second pivot, moving from a service provider to an operator of urban farms serving business clients with fresh vegetables with a short supply chain. We then supported the company in developing a plan to be used as a basis for a early stage VC investment.
