Billionaire rapper Jay-Z and tennis megastar Serena Williams are among global public figures who have invested their funds to back the growth of Indonesian coffee chain Kopi Kenangan.
Williams invested through her venture company, Serena Ventures, while Jay-Z made the investment through his venture firm Arrive, Edward Tirtanata, CEO of Indonesia’s homegrown coffee chain confirmed on Dec. 23.
“Kopi Kenangan has the vision to take [the brand] internationally on the global stage. That’s why we decided to find investors that could help us with such brand-building,” Tirtanata told The Jakarta Post.
In a news release, Kopi Kenangan’s owners said they were planning to add more than a thousand new stores over the next two years and expand the chain across Southeast Asia.
“We want to build a legendary brand,” Tirtanata said, “We have come a long way since our humble beginnings two years back and we want to continue learning and improving our service and products to meet the expectations of our customers in Indonesia and other markets.”
Founded in 2017, Kopi Kenangan aims to fill the gap between the lower-end instant coffee available at mom-and-pop shops and high-end espresso concoctions sold by global chains like Starbucks. In Indonesia, instant coffee is guzzled by lower-income earners, while high-end brews are mostly consumed by the affluent.