Singapore-listed Olam Group Limited has announced the closure of Jiva Ag, its agritech venture incubated by Nupo Ventures, part of the Remaining Olam Group, as the company pushes ahead with a restructuring plan to conserve cash and cut debt.
“The Group has made the difficult but necessary decision to close Jiva Ag in light of the expected continuing investment required to sustain its operations in these challenging times and difficult market conditions,” Olam said in a statement filed with the Singapore Exchange on Thursday.
The closure is part of Olam’s Updated 2025 Re-organisation Plan, announced in April, which seeks to make the Remaining Olam Group debt-free and self-sustaining over time. The plan calls for conserving cash, reducing debt, and responsibly divesting non-core assets.
The shutdown will affect 606 employees across Singapore, Indonesia, India and Australia, with the bulk—531 roles—based in Indonesia. Olam said impacted staff would be supported with redeployment opportunities, severance packages aligned with local regulations, outplacement services, and access to its employee assistance programme.
“The shutdown will affect 606 employees across Singapore, Indonesia, India and Australia.”
Sources earlier told DealStreetAsia that Jiva had already begun laying off some of its C-level executives, with a broader round of cuts planned, and that a full shutdown had been under discussion well before the SGX disclosure.
Olam has presented the closure as a matter of financial discipline, emphasising balance-sheet priorities. But Jiva’s co-founder, Seamus Tardif, told DealStreetAsia the decision was “less a challenge of traction”.
He said Jiva had scaled rapidly to become one of Southeast Asia’s largest agritech platforms: 200,000 farmers, 5,000 collectors, 5,000 retailers, and more than one million tonnes of crops handled within four years. Over 80% of transactions ran directly through Jiva’s apps, supported by AI-driven credit risk systems with recovery rates above 99.5%, and automated KYC and payments completed in under 15 minutes.
“The farmer application was a very small component of our broader technology ecosystem, and we deliberately chose not to scale it, focusing instead on revenue-generating technology,” he said. Some business lines, he added, were already profitable or close to profitability, while surveys of over 1,000 farmers showed income uplifts of up to 25%.
Jiva was established in 2020 as a corporate venture between Olam and BCG Digital Ventures, launching in Indonesia and India to provide smallholder farmers with advisory services, financing, and crop offtake.
Tardif noted the closure would not be immediate: “It will effectively happen in a few months, since there are still long steps to be done.”
In its H1 2025 results, Olam booked a S$13.2 million impairment loss tied to Jiva’s intangible assets. The group said it expects to recognise up to $9 million in one-off closure costs in H2 2025, though these would not materially affect full-year results.
As of end-2024, Olam had invested S$2.7 billion in the Remaining Olam Group, of which S$44 million was allocated to the Incubating Businesses segment that included Jiva. No breakdown for Jiva specifically has been disclosed. Industry estimates suggest the venture has consumed more than $100 million since inception.
Jiva is wholly owned by Olam, which is majority-controlled by Singapore state investor Temasek.
