SINGAPORE – Singapore’s GUUD (Finance) Pte. Ltd. (“GUUD Finance”), the financing pillar of the GUUD group, a leading trade technology company, has inked an agreement with Mellower Coffee (“Mellower”), one of China’s leading speciality coffee chains to provide working capital loans across its coffee supply chain. The agreement marks the GUUD group’s first foray into the coffee market and is also significant as it allows GUUD to provide credit access all the way upstream to the farmers or growers of coffee beans.
The GUUD group’s vision has always been to simplify trade processes so that anyone and everyone can access global trade. As a key player enabling financing for all businesses in the global trade cycle, this project is important to GUUD, as it allows everyone in the supply chain, whether coffee growers, roasters, or retailers to be able to access trade financing via traditional and alternative sources, and to free up their funds to be re-deployed into the day-to-day working capital needs of their respective businesses.
As part of this agreement, GUUD Finance will provide working capital support of up to USD12 million for Mellower by financing the purchase of coffee beans of Chinese origin from Yunnan during the harvest season, providing farmers and growers with access to the working capital they need. GUUD Finance will also finance the purchase of coffee powder and other coffee related products of Chinese origin earmarked for export, helping smaller businesses in China gain access to working capital so they can further grow their export volumes.
Mellower Coffee is a plantation-to-cup coffee chain from Shanghai that believes quality specialty coffee is synonymous with a high quality of life. As the leading specialty coffee brand in China, Mellower currently operates a chain of 72 retail stores in Mainland China, Singapore, South Korea and Vietnam.
Ms Cathy Lei, Founder of Mellower shared, “We are pleased to be partnering GUUD Finance as we continue to grow our business and start to expand to more markets internationally. By providing working capital financing for all the businesses upstream and downstream in the coffee supply chain, GUUD Finance has been helping all our partners and producers access funding, giving them the opportunity to take in more stocks for sale. Their overall expertise in navigating global trade, use of sophisticated technology to track shipments and monitor goods as well as ability to facilitate financing, especially for businesses like ours, is invaluable as we expand to even more countries.”
GUUD Finance has been working closely with Mellower Coffee to implement asset-backed financing across its supply chain, using internet-of-things (IOT) for goods tracking and optimising trade flows and processes since mid this year. They completed their first successful financing deal earlier this month.
Mr Desmond Loh, Chief Executive Officer of GUUD Finance shared, “Helping smaller producers and SMEs access working capital finance has always been a priority for GUUD Finance. We are extremely happy to have this opportunity to partner Mellower Coffee as they continue their expansion plans globally, supplying great coffee to businesses and retail chains around the world. In particular, we hope to assist companies that have been impacted by the various supply chain disruptions and are required to aggregate their products for sale earlier. Similarly, we want to help companies that have been looking to store more buffer stock compared to the Just-In-time solutions that they have been traditionally working with. We look forward to supporting more of such businesses in the agriculture commodity business and to help them gain access to financing solutions that help meet their working capital needs.”
GUUD Finance, which forms the “Pay” pillar of the GUUD group, helps businesses gain access to finance so they can trade greater volumes of goods with ease. GUUD’s digital trade ecosystem, the only one in the world that connects all stakeholders in the trade facilitation process, helps businesses bypass long-standing barriers to global trade, enabling them to import or export goods seamlessly to any part of the world.
GUUD Finance recently launched RYTE in July 2021, an intelligent trade financing technology platform designed to simplify complex and traditionally manual trade finance processes, connecting business users to both banks and alternative financiers, allowing them greater opportunities to access funding options to meet their working capital requirements.
GUUD is one of the fastest-growing technology companies in Singapore, with offices strategically located in Indonesia, China and Kenya, and projects spanning more than 17 countries.
