Xurya Confirms the Series A Funding Worth of 308 Billion Rupiah Led by East Ventures and Saratoga

Xurya renewable energy startup announced a $21.5 million (approximately 308 billion Rupiah) series A funding round led by East Ventures (Growth Fund) and PT Saratoga Investama Sedaya Tbk (Saratoga). The confirmed value was much bigger than what we’ve been informed in December 2021, at $14 million.

Schneider Electric and New Energy Nexus Indonesia, Xurya’s former investors, also participated in the round. Last year, New Energy Nexus Indonesia finalized its investment in five renewable energy companies. Meanwhile, Schneider Electric, through Schneider Electric Energy Access Asia (SEEAA) made its investment debut to Indonesia’s renewable energy startup, Xurya.

Xurya will allocate the fresh funds to continue the construction of Rooftop Solar Panel which has tripled in the past year, technology development, and human resources, therefore, efforts to accelerate the clean energy transition can be immediately executed.

“We appreciate the support and trust given by investors, partners and customers to assist us in accelerating the transition to new renewable energy in Indonesia since Xurya was founded three years ago,” Xurya Daya Indonesia’s Managing Director, Eka Himawan said in an official statement, Wednesday (1/12).

East Ventures’ Managing Partner, Roderick Purwana said, “East Ventures believes in the essential of investing in the right companies, not only for profit, but also to provide social and environmental impact. As one of the pioneers of VC applying an ESG approach to investment, we are very pleased to be able to support the Xurya team from the very beginning of their journey to create a clean and sustainable energy revolution in Indonesia, and protect the earth.”

Saratoga’s President Director, Michael Soeryadjaya added, “This investment is a good opportunity for Saratoga to strengthen support in the New & Renewable Energy (EBT) technology sector, which is now one of the government’s priority.”

He said, Rooftop Solar Panel (PLTS) can provide a solution for the clean, environmentally friendly and sustainable energy in Indonesia. The growth of Rooftop PLTS capacity is rapidly significant in the last three years, it proves the NRE technologyis getting higher demand.

As one of the government-supported initiatives, Saratoga can help accelerate the government’s efforts to achieve the NRE mix target of up to 23% by 2025 and 31% by 2050.

Until the end of 2021, Xurya has operated 57 Rooftop Solar Panel and is currently building in 38 other locations from various industries and businesses, such as manufacturing companies (food and beverage, consumer goods, agriculture, automotive, steel, building materials, textiles, etc), cold storage, hotels, and shopping centers across Jakarta, Banten, West Java, East Java, Central Java, Lampung, South and North Sumatra, and South Sulawesi.

Xurya products

Xurya Daya Indonesia (Xurya) offers several products, including solar-based energy solutions, which applied to building roofs. Aside from installation and equipment, the company also develops an application to facillitate owners in managing energy easier.

In addition, Xurya also pioneered the no-investment method to switch to solar power with a monthly fee model. In its implementation, it is a one-stop solution, Xurya will help from the design process, equipment selection, licensing, construction to the selection of financing products for solar electricity customers.

Eka said in tan interview, “Amid the slowdown in PV mini-grid investment, we believe that commercial and industrial customers have become a bright spot for electricity investors in Indonesia, not only in terms of profit, but more importantly from a climate impact perspective.”

Eka admits that consumer education is one of the toughest challenges. Because there are many companies and individuals who do not understand solar panels and many have the wrong idea about the electrical stability of PLTS. “The main target this year is to expand its business throughout Indonesia to offer go green solutions to more companies.”

The opportunity for Rooftop PLTS development in Indonesia is very large, exceeding its potential capacity of 200 thousand megawatts. Currently, the cost of Rooftop PLTS components is lower than other renewable energies, but this market has not been fully utilized so that less than 150 megawatts have been installed throughout Indonesia.

Apart from Xurya, there are already several startups engaged in this segment. Some of those are Warung Energi, Weston Energy, Forbetric, Erenesia, Khaira Energy, and Syailendra Power. Most work on the potential of solar power.

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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian

Xendit Introduces BPR Zen, Venturing into the Banking Industry

The business expansion of fintech unicorn, Xendit, has gone beyond the payment gateway by venturing into banking and establishing PT Bank Perkreditan Rakyat Xen. From DailySocial.id’s observation, BPR Xen has actively recruiting on various job portals.

The information is quite limited, including Xendit‘s channel for entry, whether through BPR acquisition or from scratch. BPR Xen is located in Depok, West Java. Our team tried to reach out, however, Xendit still preparing for answers by the time this news published.

BPR Xen by Xendit enlivens the digital crowd leveraging BPR and BPRS vehicles in the banking industry. There are UpBanx (Fazz Financial Group), Bank Hijra (ALAMI Group), and Komunal with the DepositoBPR product.

Compared to other commercial banks, BPR’s activities are practically limited as they can only channel credit (no credit cards allowed and the it is limited to billions of Rupiah), savings, and time deposits. Also, the user base is more defined, at the provincial level.

Thus, this segment requires digitization to compete in the industry, along with ecosystem support. Xendit as a payment gateway has the ability to handle the transaction flow of money from various sources and also reconciliation.

Credit bank digitization

Komunal, through its DepositoBPR, grasps a perspective from the limited BPR users as it has not been digitized, therefore, its products have limited exposure and difficult access for urban depositors. DepositoBPR bridges BPR partners who are looking for customers to make deposit with depositors who want to multiple their funds or invest through BPR Deposits.

Komunal’s Co-Founder, Hendry Lieviant said that it is an irony, during this pandemic, when commercial banks have high liquidity with low interest offers. Meanwhile, BPRs have difficulty accepting deposits simply because 95% of Indonesia’s depositors live in urban areas.

In the development of DepositoBPR, one of the main challenges is standardizing and optimizing BPR processes which are currently still fragmented,. It requires improvements in terms of depositor experience. For example, changing live signature to digital, e-KYC through video calls, and most importantly changing physical bills into e-bill.

The thing is, in providing this solution, Komunal cooperates with the digital ecosystem. Xendit is one of its partners to facilitate the transaction flow.

In terms of industry, OJK has encouraged BPRs to collaborate with various institutions, for example facilitation collaboration between BPRs and fintech startups.

OJK has granted the request for BPR and fintech lending for collaboration through two schemes, channeling and referral. It is said in the Guidebook for BPR and Fintech Lending Cooperation which was published in March 2021.

Furthermore, by initiating the development of BPR e-Cash in collaboration with Finnet Indonesia. BPR e-Cash is a kind of mobile-based electronic money that can later be used for various transactions such as QR payments, top up, money transfers, and others.

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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian

Pluang Secures 787 Billion Additional Funding, to Further Democratize Investment Access

The wealthtech platform Pluang has raised $55 million funding or equivalent to IDR 787 billion led by Accel, a Silicon Valley based venture capital firm. This is the follow-up round of the latest series B funding in September, Pluang has currently secured a total funding of $110 million throughout 2021.

Other investors involved in this round were Trung Nguyen, Andy Ho, Aleksander Leonard Larsen, and Jeffrey Zirlin (founder of Axie Infinity), Alexa von Tobel (former CEO of Learnvest), Daniela Binatti (CTO of Pismo), Jannick Malling and Leif Abraham. (Co-CEO of Public.com), Raghu Yarlagadda (CEO of FalconX), Sergio Jimenez (CEO of Flink), The Chainsmokers, BRI Ventures, Gold House, along with previous investors, including Square Peg, Go-Ventures, UOB Venture Management, and Openspace Ventures.

Pluang will use the fresh money to continue democratizing investment access to various asset classes for all levels of society. Pluang also plans to expand its business coverage to Southeast Asia. It is in line with the company’s mission to empower and increase financial literacy and inclusion in the region.

“With this additional funding, our team can accelerate momentum and provide the tools, resources, knowledge and insights to enable more people building a long-term wealth. We are excited to have a world class investor like Accel, as well as our new investors, which supports Pluang to grow to the next level,” Pluang’s Co-Founder, Claudia Kolonas said in an official statement.

Democratizing investment access

Was founded in 2019 by Claudia Kolonas and Richard Chua, Pluang started the business by providing access to gold investments. Within 3 years of operation, Pluang has had over 4 million registered users in Indonesia and the number is rapidly growing.

Pluang recorded a 22-fold user growth, making active transactions between January 2020 and November 2021. In addition, they also recorded a 28.5-fold user growth with active balances in the same period.

Pluang’s growth cannot be separated from the product diversification available on its platform. Starting from gold, capital markets, mutual funds, and the recently added, Micro E-mini Nasdaq 100 Index Futures investment asset class. It is a derivative futures product that is traded on the Chicago Merchantile Exchange (CME).

In addition, partnerships with several super apps in the Southeast Asia region have also opened up wider access to investment for the public. Pluang has several partners, incluuding Gojek, DANA, Bukalapak, and Tokopedia. This December, Pluang has officially entered Tokopedia’s ecosystem as an alternative option for gold investment.

Regarding novice investor as a target market, Claudia also mentioned that Indonesia’s investment penetration is still below 1 percent, resulting in a very large opportunity in this sector. Therefore, Pluang, by all means, eager to improve financial literacy and encourage democratization of investment access for all audiences.

“Financial literacy for the young generation is one solution to overcome economic inequality in Indonesia. We are so excited to contribute in reducing this economic gap by providing access to products that used to be out of reach,” Claudia said in a webinar held by Pluang (1/12).

In the near future, Pluang is to launch the first investment product in Indonesia that allows users to invest in US stocks starting from 0.1 units .

Investment in the wealthtech sector

Global investors have also realized the size and potential of the digital economy market in Southeast Asia. In 2020 alone, the total investment disbursed into startups in Southeast Asia has reached $8.2 billion. The wealthtech sector itself takes part of the total investment.

Claudia also mentioned, “As the largest country in Southeast Asia, we are very proud to see rapid developments in the capital market and digital assets. Currently, more than 10 million people have invested in Indonesia. Hopefully, Indonesia can be an example and an incubator for other countries in Southeast Asia to develop the wealthtech sector in each respective countries.”

Aside from Pluang, several platforms that provide similar services have also succeeded to raise funding throughout 2021. DailySocial.id managed to create a list of those companies :

Platform	Stage	Funding
Moduit	Pra-Seri A (November)	65 miliar Rupiah
Bareksa	Seri C (November)	Tidak disebutkan
Ajaib	Seri B (Oktober)	>2,1 triliun Rupiah
Bibit	Lanjutan Seri A (Mei)	938 miliar Rupiah
FUNDtastic	Seri A (Februari)	108 miliar Rupiah

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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian

Application Information Will Show Up Here

DSConnect: Batex and Cityplan are Fundraising

DSConnect is launched to bridge between startups and investors. Using this platform, investors can find a list of startup founders currently fundraising with the details of the company, founders, as well as fundraising. With a click of a button, founders and interested potential investors can get an email introduction they can follow up with further meetings.

This article is the opening series to promote selected startups on DSConnect are currently fundraising. We did a tight curation for each entry to ensure the startup quality. Here’s the list:

Batex ($700K)

Batex Technologies is a company based in Central Java that produces cutting edge batteries for energy storage systems that will be used for consumer power walls, silent generator set ($1.5 billion markets in the Asia Pacific, 2020), and electric vehicles (projected $60 billion markets in SEA by 2027).

More info: https://connect.dailysocial.id/fundraising/batex

Cityplan ($250K)

Cityplan is a startup that empowers companies to find the location for expansion strategy and optimize their supply chain through location intelligence. Currently, we broaden our service to the logistic industry, especially the pick-up point expansion in the first mile and last-mile process. The Indonesia courier, express, and parcel (CEP) market will reach $6045 million by 2026 (Mordor intelligence report).

More info: https://connect.dailysocial.id/fundraising/cityplan

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For more startups and opportunities to invest in them, visit https://connect.dailysocial.id/. If you are a startup founder and are still fundraising, please select the “Connect to Investor” option and tell us more about your startup and the fundraising. Meanwhile, if you are a venture capitalist or angel investor, please “Apply as Investor” and give us a little bit of information about you before we decide to admit you to the platform.

CT Corp and Bukalapak to Form Joint Venture in Online Grocery Sector

The conglomerate company owner, Chairul Tanjung, through PT Trans Retail Indonesia, announced an online grocery joint venture with PT Bukalapak.com Tbk (IDX: BUKA).

“The e-commerce will be focused on providing fresh products and food (grocery). The ownership of Trans Retail [will be] at 55% and Bukalapak at 45%,” Chairul Tanjung said after a press conference at the Indonesia Stock Exchange.

CT, he often called, is reluctant to elaborate further on the joint venture. However, this corporate action shows a signal from CT Corp to seriously work on selling fresh products and food ingredients on an offline-to-online (O2O) basis.

On a general note, Trans Retail Indonesia is a subsidiary of CT Corp, which oversees modern retail network companies Transmart, Carrefour, and Groserindo. Currently, Trans Retail Indonesia has operated nearly 100 multi-format concept outlets in 28 cities in Indonesia, offering 40,000 products to its 70 million customers.

e-grocery market competition

Prior to this, several top-tier tech companies have taken similar corporate actions. Unlike this one, they take an inorganic strategy by acquiring modern retail chain companies.

Blibli and GoTo have announced corporate actions to take over retail companies in 2021. Blibli with 51% shares owned by PT Supra Boga Lestari Tbk (IDX: RANC) managed by Ranch Market.

Meanwhile, GoTo acquired a 6.74% stake in PT Matahari Putra Prima Tbk (IDX: MPPA) through PT Multipolar Tbk (IDX: MPLPL). Meanwhile, Matahari Putra Prima is a Lippo Group’s subsidiary, which has a giant modern retail network in Indonesia. Some of its outlets are Hypermart, Foodmart Supermarket, and Primo Supermarket.

GoTo	Hypermart; 200 outlets in 72 cities in Indonesia, 103 gerai integrated with Hypermart Online	Acquisition
Blibli	Ranch Market; 16 Ranch Markets, 29 Farmers Markets, 1 The Gourmet by Ranch Market, and Day 2 Day by Farmers Markets	Acquisition
Trans Retail-Bukalapak	N/A	Joint Venture (JV

Source: Reorganized by DailySocial

Previously, the Minister of Trade Muhammad Lutfi projected the sales value of fresh food products through the marketplace to reach more than Rp180 trillion in the next five years. Meanwhile, the sales value in 2021 is estimated at IDR 21 trillion.

Lutfi said the contribution of selling fresh food products through the marketplace was still small, but the growth was significant. Moreover, he saw the trend of many synergies between modern retailers and technology companies.

The retail network has started to drive sales with an online-to-offline (O2O) concept by partnering with technology companies with strengths in innovation, product ecosystem, and logistics.

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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian

Lamudi.co.id to Acquire OLX Indonesia’s Property Business

Lamudi.co.id announced the acquisition of OLX Indonesia’s property business. Starting earlier this year, Lamudi.co.id has been fully operating the business line. This is part of Lamudi’s ambition to become the largest proptech in Indonesia.

For the record, Emerging Markets Property Group (EMPG), a property portal group from the Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia announced the acquisition of Lamudi Global, a property group which operation covers Indonesia, the Philippines and Mexico in May 2020.

A month earlier, EMPG was fully acquired the OLX Group, which operates in MENA (Middle East and North Africa) and South Asia. This move successfully catapulted EMPG’s valuation into a unicorn due to a $150 million funding obtained from the OLX Group and other stakeholders.

Through the OLX Indonesia’s property business acquisition, currently Lamudi.co.id has more than 4.5 million unique visitors, 600 thousand new listings every month, and generates purchase interest of more than two million which will ensure high visibility from seller listings.

“This acquisition is a golden opportunity to continue improving our services for Indonesians, especially in providing the most complete property options to suit everyone’s demand. Lamudi.co.id is here for the Indonesian people to provide the easiest and most reliable experience in finding a dream property,” Lamudi.co.id’s CEO, Mart Polman said in an official statement, Wednesday (1/11).

Lamudi’s founder, Kian Moini said that Indonesia is EMPG’s priority market due to high confidence in Indonesia’s market, with positive prospects for Indonesia’s economic growth in the future and Lamudi’s potential in providing the best real estate solution services.

“This acquisition demonstrates our commitment through our vision for Indonesia, which is to provide the best real estate service experience and help Indonesians find a dream home,” he said.

OLX Group Indonesia’s CEO, Johnny Widodo said that the merger of OLX’s property business with Lamudi.co.id will strengthen access to property for all potential home buyers in Indonesia.

“We are proud of the OLX Indonesia’s property business growth which trusted by millions of users, and we are confident that this business will bloom. Lamudi.co.id will strengthen the property search experience for all Indonesian property seekers,” Johnny said.

He also mentioned that all interfaces and operations will not be changed, including other businesses under OLX Indonesia.

On the platform, the company will share user account data with Lamudi.co.id. Whether you’re uncomfortable or dislike the terms and conditions, all users can delete their account on January 18, 2022 at the latest.

Lamudi.co.id first appeared in Indonesia in February 2014 with more than 700 employees and continues to grow with expansion plans to the Indonesian property market. They provide online end-to-end services in property search and become a liaison platform between property seekers and developers up to the transaction process, facilitated by the best technology to have seamles search experience.

In July 2020, OLX also announced the acquisition of a similar local player, BeliMobilGue. This move changed the use of the brand to OLX Autos Indonesia (OLX Autos), as well as appointed the chairman of BeliMobilGue Johnny Widodo as part of OLX Indonesia.

The acquisition

Lamudi’s closest competitor, 99 Group, had previously make an acquisition act. Aside from being practical and automatically making it easier to become a player with the largest users, this is also capital intensive strategy. Moreover, property searches are rising due to increasing digital adoption. Therefore, the more property listed, the more visitors will find the property.

It is proven from the SimilarWeb data, 99.co has the highest visits in Indonesia for the last six months with an average visit of 19.97 million with an average of 1.26 minutes. Then, followed by Rumah123 which received an average of 3.78 million visits with an average of 2.05 minutes and Lamudi.co.id with 1.03 average visits and 3.30 minutes average duration.

99 Group operates in Indonesia and Singapore. 99.co previously acquired Urbanindo, forming a joint venture with Real Estate Australia (REA). REA has two property sites, including iproperty.com.sg and Rumah123.com. 99 Group also acquired the Singapore Real Estate Exchange (SRX) in November 2020.

SRX is a property platform and real estate data provider in Singapore. This acquisition act is to add a collection of listings, information, and various tools to support the parent in providing value added and competitive services to consumers and real estate professionals in the country.

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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian

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eFishery Obtains 1.2 Trillion Rupiah Fresh Funding, to Expand Throughout Asia

Aquatech startup eFishery announced a series C funding of $90 million (over 1.2 trillion Rupiah) led by Temasek, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Sequoia Capital India, with the participation of previous investors, including Northstar Group, Go-Ventures, Aqua-Spark, and Wavemaker Partners.

The fresh money is said to be the largest amount for the aquaculture technology startup. The company plans to use the funds to improve platform’s tech and services. In addition, to enhance eFishey’s digital products in order to become the largest digital “cooperative” for fish and shrimp cultivators. eFishery also plans regional expansion, targeting the top 10 aquaculture -friendly countries, including India and China.

SoftBank Investment Advisers’ Director, Anna Lo said, “Indonesia is one of the largest fish production rate in the world and its aquaculture sector plays an important role in producing food for the world’s growing population. eFishery is pioneering technology adoption for local fish and shrimp farmers with a complete end-to-end platform, supporting them to increase productivity across the supply chain from technology, food supply, production, and direct sales.

“We are pleased to partner with eFishery and support them to provide reliable and sustainable fishery food products to Indonesia and other regions,” Lo said in an official statement, (1/11).

Sequoia India’s VP, Aakash Kapoor added, “With a $20 billion market and a complex and fragmented supply chain, aquatech becomes one of the biggest and most attractive opportunities in Indonesia. That is what makes working with eFishery, as the market leader in this sector, interesting.”

Based in Bandung, eFishery is revolutionizing the traditional fish and shrimp farming industry and providing solutions specifically designed to increase fish and shrimp aquaculture. eFishery offers an integrated end-to-end platform and provides fish and shrimp farmers access to (i) technology, (ii) feed, (iii) financing, and (iv) markets.

eFishery innovation

Was founded in 2013, thousands of smart feeders have been used and more than 30,000 farmers have been served from 24 provinces in Indonesia. Through pandemic peak, eFishery increased the coverage by 10 times since December 2020, and advanced the sales of feed and aquaculture harvests.

eFishery has a series of innovations, including eFarm and eFisheryKu. eFarm is an online platform that provides complete and easy-to-understand information about shrimp farming operations for cultivators, while eFisheryKu is an integrated platform, enabling fish farmers to purchase various aquaculture products, including fish feed, at competitive prices. Farmers can also apply for capital through eFund, which connects fish farmers directly with financial institutions.

eFund’s main feature is Kabayan (Kasih, Bayar Nanti), a paylater service that provides productive loan to cultivators for aquaculture production needs with a maturity payment system. The whole process is run through the eFisheryKu app. To date, more than 7,000 cultivators have been supported with the total approved loans exceeding 400 billion rupiah.

eFishery’s Co-founder & CEO, Gibran Huzaifah, said that the company focuses on presenting solutions to increase farmer productivity. Through the latest technologies, he and his team streamline fish and shrimp farming businesses, creating the more effective, efficient and sustainable industry. For example, eFishery’s downstream technology, eFeeder, is able to speed up the harvest cycle and increase production capacity by up to 26%.

“We are also connecting cultivators directly with buyers through our downstream technology, eFresh, thereby increasing their marketability. It is resulting in the reduction of operational costs and farmers’ increasing income up to 45 percent,” he said.

Since the latest funding, eFishery has tripled its workforce, with a total of more than 900 people. Although the head office is located in Bandung, more than half of the employees work remotely because of the policy that allows employees to work from anywhere (Work From Anywhere/WFA).

“We will use the funding to aggressively recruit the team, especially talents in engineering and product development. We are targeting 1,000 new employees this year, not only to create an impact in the Indonesian aquaculture industry, but on a larger scale, to conquer the global aquaculture supply.”

Through its technology-based solutions, eFishery modernizes cultivation techniques for better aquaculture harvest. eFishery has ambitions to acquire one million cultivators within the next 3-5 years.

“The most important thing is, we always remember our vision to feed the global community through aquaculture, because aquaculture products held the most efficient and highly nutritious source of animal protein. By 2050, there will be 10 billion people to feed, and we are ready to prepare this sector to be able to feed the world,” Gibran said.

Aquatech startup in Indonesia

The global Aquaculture market size is forecasted to reach a market growth in 2020 to 2025, at a CAGR of 3.5%% within 2020 to 2025 and is expected to reach $239.8 trillion in 2025, from $209.4 trillion in 2019.

Every year, aquaculture increases its contribution to global seafood production. The sector produced 110.2 million tonnes in 2016, valued at $243.5 billion and constitutes 53 percent of the world’s seafood supply. According to FAO data, 90 percent of production volume is produced in Asia.

In Indonesia, there are several startups have started targeting similar segments. For example, Aruna, a technology startup that provides a platform to make it easier for fishermen to sell their products directly to global and domestic markets. The company has successfully secured funding from East Ventures, AC Ventures, and SMDV in 2020.

Another startup engaged in a more specific sector is Jala. This startup presents technological solutions to optimize the productivity of shrimp farmers in Indonesia. In 2019, the company managed to secure a seed round from 500 Startups worth of 8 billion Rupiah.

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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian

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KedaiSayur Announces the Latest Funding Worth of 50 Billion Rupiah

KedaiSayur (PT Kedai Sayur Indonesia) announced the latest funding in a bridge round worth of $3.5 million or around 50 billion Rupiah. The investors involved are yet to be disclosed. In the release, KedaiSayur also confirmed its status as a tech-based wholesale company under the Triputra Group.

The bridge round concept is basically investors participating in a startup funding to close the next series. In general, the latest equity count will be delivered after the company met a certain target, according to the agreement and based on the value disbursed by each investor. In addition, there is an agreed deadline regarding the closing of the next series.

Previously, the competitor, Sayurbox, also announced the funding in the bridge round from Metrodata.

The fresh funds is said to be focused on supporting business acceleration and advancing the platform’s technology. This is in line with the target growth — until the end of 2021, KedaiSayur claims to have achieved 24x business growth compared to the previous year through the KedaiMart application.

“With our commitment as a good supply chain management to provide grocery from upstream to downstream, KedaiSayur continues to improve service quality and always offer added value for all partners. It is because customer satisfaction is the key in our business development, therefore, we will continue to make efforts to create operational excellence,” KedaiSayur’s CEO, Adrian Hernanto said.

Adrian also mentioned, in addition to providing convenience to fulfill people’s needs of groceries through applications and dashboards for ordering, KedaiSayur is currently focus on slowly developing the land digitization. “Through monitoring with tech, we can do forecasting and each region will later be able to have sufficient data to increase their business scale, which is supported by the data transparency generated through the digitization process,” he said.

Pivoting due to pandemic

In May 2020, KedaiSayur announced a business pivot to online food delivery service. Previously, the company served B2B consumers such as hotels, restaurants and cafes, and vegetable vendors who wanted to supply food ingredients for selling.

The thing is, the food product market has started to change since the Covid-19 began in early March. Demand from hotels, restaurants and cafes drop by 50%. Previously, the growth of this business could reach more than 20% per month. Meanwhile, at the same time, the demand from vegetable growers and household customers has increased significantly. The company is confident to take pivot decisions based on this.

On the other hand, operational restrictions on the wholesale market and local markets disrupt the distribution pattern of fresh food products in Indonesia. This has an impact not only on consumers who cannot shop at the market, farmers also lose the medium to distribute their harvests.

In February 2021, KedaiSayur released the KedaiMart application to provide daily grocery with the concept of “supermarket in your pocket”. Previously, apart from the application itself, users could also order KedaiSayur products through Tokopedia and Blibli.

Growing market, tighten competition

Since it was founded in 2018, KedaiSayur has closed two funding rounds, with a total of $5.3 million supported by some investors, including East Ventures, SMDV, Triputra Group, and Multi Persada Nusantara. Currently, they have more than 5 thousand partners from vegetable traders, HORECA, and wholesale markets. They also cooperate with 250 farmers who provide product supplies to meet their needs.

According to the IGD report, the size of the wholesale market in Indonesia will reach $169.4 billion in 2022 with a CAGR of 5.2% in the last two years. This position confirms Indonesia as the 13th largest wholesale market in the world, and the second largest in Asia after China. It iis indeed a huge business potential, considering the size of traditional retail businesses.

The pandemic that accelerates digitization is a key opportunity for online store players. It’s clear that throughout the pandemic, startups in this field continue to raise funds to support the business growth.

Period	Startup	Investasi
November 2021	Astro	Seed Funding
September 2021	Dropezy	Series A
August 2021	Pasarnow	Seed Funding
August 2021	Segari	Series A
July 2021	HappyFresh	Series D
April 2021	Sayurbox	Series B
March 2021	Dropezy	Seed Funding
March 2021	Segari	Seed Funding
March 2021	Eden Farm	Seed Funding
August 2020	Wahyoo (meluncurkan Langganan.co.id)	Series A
July 2020	BorongBareng	Pre-Series A
March 2020	Chilibeli	Series A

Local technology giants has held a series of corporate actions related to strengthening the wholesale online business. Last September 2021, Blibli online marketplace officially acquired a 51% stake in Ranch Market, which operates 48 wholesale retail stores in various cities. Recently, there are also several integration, from the creation of the official Ranch Market channel on the Blibli application. Meanwhile, GoTo also acquired 6.74% of Hypermart retail network owners, which is likely to strengthen GoMart’s business.

New players also keep popping up with different approaches. For example, Japang, which was initiated by the founder and investor of ex-Tanihub, which focuses on providing access to online wholesale services for users outside Java. Until Astro came up with the quick commerce concept.

Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian

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Hanindia Narendrata: Telunjuk’s Fortunate Leads the Way towards Its Goal

In the late 2021, the Telunjuk price comparison platform was acquired by PT Diamond Food Indonesia Tbk. (Diamonds). Through the Company’s subsidiary, PT Sukanda Djaya, they have signed a conditional share purchase agreement for the 81% ownership of the company. This is the company’s new chapter after it was founded in 2012.

Telunjuk’s CEO, Hanindia Narendrata said, Telunjuk’s next mission is to develop Compas and maintain its first product, a price comparison platform.

Company’s Journey

One of the company’s milestones was its Series A funding from Venturra in 2015. Back then, Telunjuk was quite aggressive to channeling marketing actions, however, the strategy hs changed to be more focused on profit.

“The thing is, if you only focus on branding, it will be just like make up, it’s only on the surface but the value is not there. For me, value is when you can give positive results to stakeholders,” Narendrata said.

Entering 2019, Telunjuk is working on the B2B segment. Instead of just being an ordinary price comparison platform, they use big data to process SKU in various marketplaces.

In the late 2020, Telunjuk introduced Compas, an e-commerce market insight dashboard to facilitate more online entrepreneurs to develop their businesses. In the platform, users can observe marketshare data summarized from four e-commerce players, including Tokopedia, Bukalapak, Shopee, and JD.id.

“Over the past three years we have experienced positive growth, even during the pandemic. Although Compas launching did not immediately get positive results, in the fourth quarter of 2020 we began to see new challenges,” Narendrata said.

It all started with a client

Hanindia Narendrata and Compas team / Compas

Diamond is one of Compas debut clients. During the process, its subsidiary, PT Sukanda Djaya, was interested in a more intensive collaboration. As the company found similarities in mission, vision, and values, they were interested to acquire Telunjuk.

“Back then, at the same time, Telunjuk was approached by two different companies, to provide investments and make acquisitions as well. However, we prefer PT Sukanda Djaya,” Narendrata said.

Narendrata also mentioned, it was a big dream for him and Telunjuk to join an experienced company.

The sense of acceptance and kinship by Diamond is said to align with Telunjuk’s working culture. The sense of trust and comfort between the two parties convinced Narendrata and team to accept this acquisition.

“There were some obstacles during the acquisition process, however, all of them could be resolved together. I also saw how they made plans, implemented corporate governance while executing them pretty well. I think these are attractive things,” Narendrata said.

Although most of the company’s shares have been taken by PT Sukanda Djaya, Narendrata emphasized on Telunjuk’s business and future plans will not be changed whatsoever. He still acts as the Director of PT Telunjuk Komputasi Indonesia.

“In the future, the data [managed by Telunjuk] will be used for further monetization of Diamond’s [business process]. It is not only useful for the benefit of the company, but also for the FMCG [industry] as a whole,” he added.

Mentor for the new generation

Narendrata also emphasized that they will be focused on developing Telunjuk in the long term. He wants to use his experience in running a startup business to help the next generation of startups–whether as a mentor or access to information and consulting.

“I feel so lucky that the startup community helped a lot in the beginning. I personally want to focus here for the long term. There are no plans to launch my own product and I’m not interested in being an angel investor. In the future, I’m more open to being a mentor and want to pursue new dreams,” he said.

He also suggested for startups who want to develop their business to an advanced stage to conduct extensive collaboration early on. “Never be afraid to be more open and transparent, because in tough times collaboration helps businesses survive.”

“I was among those who realized this concept quite late. Startups generally have limited funding. [..] Usually [they] can build a trustworthy business and work together if there are friends who can support them. The point is to be more open,” he said.

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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian

Carsome Closes Series E Funding Worth of 4.1 Trillion Rupiah (UPDATED)

The car marketplace platform, Carsome, announced a $290 million Series E funding round 4.1 trillion Rupiah. This round brough the company’s valuation to approximately $1.7 billion, awarding them as one of the largest automotive e-commerce platforms in Southeast Asia.

The round was led by several investors, including the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), 65 Equity Partners and the Seatown Private Capital Master Fund. Participating also the Mediatek, Sunway, Gokongwei Group, YTL Group, and Taiwan Mobile. QIA was previously rumored to have led Traveloka‘s latest fundraising.

Carsome plans to use the fresh funds to accelerate investments in people, products, technology, data capabilities, infrastructure and regional expansion of its “Carsome Certified” retail brand across their key markets of Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.

Earlier in September 2021, Carsome has announced a $170 million series D2 round. Simultaneously, the company also announced a credit (debt funding) worth $30 million to strengthen the car financing business. Then, the company’s valuation increased to $1.3 billion.

Business in Indonesia

Carsome has been operating in Indonesia since 2017 with a consumer-to-business (C2B) business model. They buy used cars from the community, then auction the vehicles off to dealers in its network. However, its business model has developed into C2B2C, instead of purchasing only, they selling used cars directly to consumers.

The online-to-offline approach combines the capabilities of web-based services with experience center outlets spread across various cities. Carsome Indonesia’s Country Head Delly Nugraha said, “We found big opportunity after expanding our business to the B2C segment. As a very retailed segment, in an effort to expand and improve our business, we will start expanding into strategic areas in the future.”

In mid-2021, Carsome has acquired a majority stake in PT Universal Collection to expand its business in car and motorcycle auction services. This resulting in Delly’s appointment as the President Director of PT Universal Collection. This corporate action allows Carsome to expand its network reach, access to finance and leasing providers, and potentially enter the motorcycle market.

Market competition

Carsome’s main competitor in the regional market is Carro. The company was previously announced a $360 million series C funding in mid-2021 led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, followed by several investors including East Ventures. With the latest funding, both Carro and Carsome have reached the unicorn status.

The ongoing strategy is identical, with the C2B2C model, Carro has the Carro Automall service for its O2O approach. In Indonesia, Carro has taken series of strategic actions, including the Jualo acquisition in 2020 and becoming a shareholder in Allo Bank in early 2022.

As both players rely on web services to reach its final consumers, here’s the traffic comparison graph of the two services for the Indonesian market:

Traffic comparison between Carsome and Carro in Indonesia / Similar Web

In Indonesia, there are also some other players, OLX Autos (formerly BeliMobilGue) which has now been integrated with OLX’s services. The platform focused more on buying cars from consumers — although some of the products that have been inspected are starting to be sold through OLX and other online marketplace channels.

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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian