Pintek Secures Nearly 100 Billion Rupiah Series A Funding to Enhance SME Financing for Educational Purposes

Education focused fintech lending startup, Pintek, announced the Series A funding of $7 million (nearly 100 billion Rupiah) through its parent company, Socap Holding Pte. Ltd. Therefore, Pintek has raised a total funding of more than $35 million.

There are new investors involved in this round, including Kaizenvest, Heritas Capital, Blue7, and Earlsfield Capital. The previous investors, such as Finch Capital, Global Founder Capital (GFC), Accion Venture Lab, Strive, and Fox Ventures, also participated.

Ioann Fainsilber as the CEO of Socap Holding Pte. Ltd. and Pintek’s Co-Founder said, Pintek aims to maximize its role in supporting the education sector in Indonesia. The company’s proposition is claimed to be validated with the increasing volume of funding, over five times in the first half of 2021, compared to the same period last year.

Throughout the Covid-19 situation, he and his team focused on maintaining capacity to operate in effective ways, such as adapting its product portfolio, launching new solutions for the education ecosystem, strengthening the capital structure, and expanding reach across Indonesia.

“We want to be one of the drivers to accelerate technology penetration of inclusive and high-quality educational and financial service products in Indonesia,” Fainsilber said in an official statement, Tuesday (23/11).

Pintek’s Co-Founder and President Director, Tommy Yuwono said that the company will use the fresh funding to focus on business development in order to reach more users, improve services, develop products and provide easier access for all students/parents, teachers, schools, and educational based SMEs.

“We discover an increasing demand in the education sector and intend to accelerate the accessibility of financial services in Indonesia by serving the whole ecosystem.”

Kaizenvest’s Principal, Gaurav Jain said, “As an education-focused investment backer, we are very impressed with what Pintek has built in Indonesia in the last three years, combining social impact and innovative financial services for their users. Kaizenvest expects to support the rapid digitization of Indonesia’s education sector by ensuring high-quality learning opportunities are available to a wider community.”

“We are very pleased to welcome our collaboration with Pintek because we believe the company is developing a comprehensive solution that will have a multiplier effect in improving the quality of access to the entire education ecosystem,” he said.

The ongoing pandemic has affected the educational infrastructure and resulting in highly limited access to education in Indonesia. More than 68 million students have to study from home, and more than 642,000 educational institutions’ operations are affected.

The difficulty of transforming educational institutions to online learning and the lack of digitalization have become significant challenges that affect teaching and learning activities, and the urgent need for education encourages Pintek to present innovation to solve these problems.

Was founded in 2018, Pintek and its affiliates have supported more than 2,750 educational institutions and 100 educational SMEs to reach more than 650 thousand students, and provide financial education content for public with 1.3 million unique monthly visitors. This series of achievements has encouraged Pintek to target 10 million customers in the ecosystem within the next five years.

Focus on educational vendor

Previously, Tommy revealed that the company has started to focus on channeling fund for educational based SMEs/vendors since last year by providing business capital loans to fulfill the procurement of school facilities and infrastructure in Indonesia.

Based on Pintek‘s analytical research in July 2021 on more than 80 educational based SMEs/vendors, most of them still rely on private funding for their company’s capital and operations. Around 90% of self-financing SMEs/vendors required Rp. 200 million cash flow in average for its operations, especially for providers of books and learning support tools. As many as 57% have experienced funding difficulties at least twice in the last two years.

“From Pintek’s research, we also found that SMEs/Vendors are still not familiar with funding from financial technology. This is certainly a challenge for us to be able to educate the audience more massively and thoroughly. Vendors/SMEs don’t need to worry because we already have a license and all services and operational activities are under the supervision of the OJK,” Tommy continued.

Pintek is targeting a disbursement of up to Rp700 billion this year, with optimal funding readiness to meet demands from educational based SMEs/vendors. Since 2019, Pintek has distributed funding to more than 3 thousand students and more than 100 educational institutions. Its realization in the first semester of 2021 is claimed to increase fourfold year-on-year with a value of hundreds of billions of Rupiah.

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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian

Ajaib Snags 24% Shares of Bank Bumi Artha, Entering the Digital Bank Business

Ajaib signals to enter digital banking, following the steps of several large startups, such as Gojek and Akulaku. The recently labeled unicorn officially acquired 24% shares of PT Bank Bumi Arta Tbk (IDX: BNBA) for IDR 746 billion.

Based on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) disclosure, PT Takjub Finansial Teknologi (Ajaib) snags 554.4 million shares of Bank Bumi Arta at Rp1,345 per share. This transaction has been completed on November 17, 2021.

In its statement, Ajaib acquired Bank Bumi Arta shares through PT Surya Husada Investment, PT Dana Graha Agung, and PT Budiman Kencana Lestari. In detail, Ajaib bought 277.2 million shares of Surya Husada, diluting its ownership from 45.45% to 33.5%.

Moreover, Ajaib snags 166.32 million shares of Dana Graha Agung, from previously 630 million or 27.27% to 20.1% Meanwhile, Budiman Kencana Lestaro’s shares were purchased for 110.8 million, making its ownership at 13.4% from 18.18%.

Following Gojek and Akulaku

There has been no further statement, either from Ajaib or Bank Bumi Arta, regarding the post-acquisition plan. However, looking at other’s past corporate actions, Ajaib seems to be entering the digital banking business as many of giant startups has done, such as Gojek and Akulaku.

Gojek bought Bank Jago shares, while Akulaku entered Bank Neo Commerce. Both of these banks started as small banks, which were then ‘transformed’ by changing its identities.

With Ajaib’s position as a mutual fund and equity investment platform, this corporate action allows the company to increase the scalability of its services in Indonesia. Bank Bumi Arta is known to be a bank that offers business and consumer financing and bank guarantees.

Parent	Acquisition/Subsidiary	Transformation
Sea Group	Bank Kesejahteraan Ekonomi	Seabank
CT Group	Bank Harda Internasional	Allo Bank
EMTEK	Bank Fama	N/A
Kredivo	Bank Bisnis Internasional	N/A

On the other hand, this corporate action also indicates the efforts of other companies speeding up to pursue core capital obligations of IDR 2 trillion by the end of this year as stated in POJK regulation No. 12.

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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian

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Alpha JWC Participates in the Funding for “Pace” Paylater Startup

Pace paylater aka BNPL (buy now pay later) startup announced $40 million (over 569 billion Rupiah) funding in series A round. Several investors joining the round, including UOB Venture Management, Marubeni Ventures, Atinum Partners, AppWorks, and a series of family business from Japan and Indonesia.

Previous investors, such as Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia, Alpha JWC Ventures, and Genesis Alternative Ventures also participated. All three chipped in a seven-figure value for the early-stage funding this year.

In an official statement, Pace’s Founder & CEO, Turochas ‘T’ Fuad explained, this round of investments came from some of the most successful and established investors which signifies their belief that Pace is the leading BNPL player in Asia.

“This area is expected to be the fastest growing BNPL market in the world. This funding will support Pace in achieving its mission to democratize financial services for all, and help us expand into Japan, Korea and Taiwan,” said T.

UOB Venture Management’s Executive Director, Paul Ng added, “We are impressed by Pace’s founders’ clear vision, rapid growth and experience not only in BNPL payments, but in its progress in creating financial inclusion, and remain confident in their ability to revolutionize financial services.”

After this investment round, Pace is said to be the fastest growing multi-region BNPL player from Singapore. The company will use its fresh funding to expand technology, operations and business development, to achieve a $1 billion Gross Merchandise Value by 2022 and grow its user base by 25 times over the next 12 months.

To date, Pace has more than 3 thousand points of sale throughout the region, engaged in various types of businesses, from fashion, fitness, F&B, education, jewelry, hobbies, services, electronics, and others. The company leveraged its technology to increase overall sales by up to 25% by leveraging local customer insights, while driving repeat purchases from a rapidly growing user base.

T launched Pace earlier this year. It has successfully expanded its overseas operations in collaboration with regulators and adapting ultra-local approaches, such as integrating payment methods in frequently used markets to build resonance with merchants and buyers. This strategy will continue to replicate the hyperlocal framework as it rolls out in new countries.

Pace enables consumers to split their purchase bill into three interest-free payments over 60 days, through an omnichannel experience that helps consumers for sustainable shopping.

Pace aims to create financial inclusion for consumers in the region, by helping them control and shop at their own pace, while helping merchants meet growing consumer demand and increase sales efficiency. Currently, Pace operates in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Thailand.

Yet to enter the Indonesian market

Pace is yet to plan expansion to Indonesian market. However, this market segment is already crowded with players from both local and overseas. Its implementation appears in many applications, from digital wallets, ticket bookings, to the most popular on e-commerce platforms and/or online marketplaces.

BNPL is one of the promising fintech segments in Southeast Asia. According to research conducted by Google, Temasek Holdings and Bain & Co., about half of Southeast Asia’s nearly 400 million adults are unbanked.

Over 90 million people are “underbanked”: They have bank accounts but do not have adequate access to investment, insurance or credit products. Millions of small and medium-sized businesses also face significant funding gaps, according to the study. This problem is getting spiky in Indonesia, where more than 70% of adults—about 140 million people—are unbanked or unbanked.

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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian

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Antler Indonesia and Its Mission to Foster Local Startup Communities

After officially announcing the Indonesia’s first cohort, a startup builder program Antler has plans to launch quality startups from local founders.

Antler Indonesia’s Partner & Country Head, Subir Lohani revealed to DailySocial, if the previous program provided opportunities for startup founders globally, this program is specifically made for Indonesian startup founders with aim to provide the best solutions in Indonesia.

Similar to the program in Singapore, all programs provided to the participans of Indonesian cohort programs are still the same. In order to adapt to market trends and conditions, the program is localized to suit the ecosystem and startup community in Indonesia.

Nevertheless, Subir emphasized, diversity remains Antler’s vision. Although the program will be held in Jakarta, it is possible for startups from other regions to join and participate in the program intensively. Likewise, the startup category is quite agnostic.

“Since the beginning, we have tried to always be hands-on to those who take part in the program. Whether it’s an existing team to startup founders who don’t have a team and co-founders. We are trying to find the right team and of course the relevant business model,” Subir said.

In the previous program held in Singapore, most of the chosen ones were startup founders with working background in unicorn to decacorn startups, for Indonesia’s special programs, all startup founders with different backgrounds have the same opportunities as startup founders with experience.

Base and Sampingan are the two startups that have participated in the Antler’s previous programs from Indonesia. Both founders are Gojek graduates.

“It is undeniable that those who have previously worked in well-known technology companies in Indonesia, mostly have experience and insight to quite sharp skills, when they finally decide to establish a startup,” Subir said.

The company plans to invest in at least 100 companies in Indonesia within the next 4 years, with the first investment in Indonesia to be made in early 2022.

Global expansion

Antler is currently available across 17 locations globally. Most recently, the program launched in Toronto and Ho Chi Minh City. There is a specific reason why Antler is expanding their presence in different countries. Especially in a country with warm and great potential for a startup community.

In terms of program, Antler considers this activity as enriching their knowledge about market conditions and startup communities in various countries. However, from an investment perspective, Antler also sees greater opportunities to invest in various countries.

“We can also help startups participating in the program to expand their business globally, if they have plans to expand in the future,” he said.

After obtaining $300 million funding last October, Antler plans to use the fresh funds to invest in advanced startups. In Southeast Asia, Antler has the South East Asia Fund, most of which is used for Antler’s operations in Southeast Asia.

“We see that there are many venture capital focused on advanced stage investments today. We have helped startup growth since the beginning, we want to continue to support startups to grow until they exit,” Subir said.

In terms of advanced funding, Antler creates opportunities for investors to partner with them, providing fresh capital to help startups grow their companies. Currently, Antler has partnered with various global venture capitalists. In Indonesia alone, Antler with its startup graduates, are attracting investors.

In this case, Subir emphasized that it is not surprising for investors to have an eye for Antler’s startup graduates. As it happens with Y Combinator graduates. He said, apart from quality startups, with global experience, the Antler team can see what trends and business models are relevant and certainly have the potential to grow. There are some of Antler’s startup graduates who then continued their program at Y Combinator.

“With my experience as a professional and in the tech industry, as well as the support of the team, I hope to be able to help Indonesian startup founders provide relevant insights and tips for their startup growth,” Subir said.

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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian

Ula Adds Up Additional Series B Funding of 328 Billion Rupiah

Ula announced an additional $23.1 million (over 328 billion Rupiah) of its Series B round around one month ago. This follow-on funding was led by Tiger Global and Flipkart’s Co-founder, Binny Bansal, bringing a total $110 million for this series B.

Previously, they had announced a series B funding of $87 billion led by Prosus Ventures, Tencent, and B Capital. Also participated in this round, Bezos Expeditions, VC created by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos; along with other leading investors, Northstar Group, AC Ventures, and Citius.

This additional fund has brought a total $140 million (more than 1.99 trillion Rupiah) in accumulation since the company’s establishment.

In the company’s official statement, this fresh fund is said to be the company’s ammo to develop buy now, pay later features and utilize AI to better serve MSME consumers. In addition, the company will continue to expand to new locations and recruit more special talents.

“This follow on funding in the Series B round signifies the interest of investors and their confidence in Ula’s vision and mission. We are grateful and excited for the opportunity to build a platform that doesn’t only empower traditional retailers, but also reorganize the traditional retail industry. As we move forward, we will continue to take a customer-first approach to addressing fundamental issues with technology,” said Ula Co-founder & CEO Nipun Mehra, Tuesday (16/11).

Previously conveyed by Ula’s Co-founder & CCO, Derry Sakti, this BNPL solution was initiated since Ula already has 70 thousand stalls that transact through its platform, the database is a provision for credit scoring before disbursing loans.

It is said that the company has grown 230 times, offering more than 6 thousand products. The majority of Ula users come from tier two to four cities that still lack access to resources and logistics infrastructure.

In a general note, traditional retailers have limitations in accessing banking products, even though they are very dependent on daily income, it makes the paylater for supplier service has tremendous benefits for stalls.

“Using Ula, they no longer have to worry about purchasing goods, product availability, or even payment, which will give them more time to focus on other more important things. Seeing firsthand the impact that Ula has had on customers’ lives certainly moves our team to move forward,” he said.

The Ula app allows shop owners to order a wide variety of products and have them delivered directly to their stores. With a simple concept, Ula tries to focus on customer needs rather than adding unnecessary features, to ensure the best experience. This app is claimed to be lighter, suitable for low connection environments and the most basic devices, and ensures it doesn’t take up too much space on their phones.

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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian

Klinik Pintar Secures 58 Billion Rupiah Series A Funding

Healthtech startup Klinik Pintar announced the series A funding of $4.15 million or around 58 billion Rupiah. Golden Gate Ventures led the funding, with the participation of Bundamedik Healthcare System (BMHS), Skystar Ventures, and Sequis Life.

Golden Gate Ventures previously invested in Klinik Pintar in a pre-series A funding round in November 2020, along with two other investors, Venturra Discovery and Kenangan Kapital, an angel fund owned by Kopi Kenangan’s Co-founder, Edward Tirtanata.

In his official statement, Golden Gate Ventures’ representative, Justin Hall expressed optimism about the Indonesian health industry. Hall said, Indonesia has a great potential growth and Klinik Pintar is taking part in this growth by building an integrated health ecosystem. “The previously mentioned convinces us to support Klinik Pintar in advancing the health system through this funding support,” he explained.

Meanwhile, the BMHS’ representative, dr. Ivan Sini said that his participation in Klinik Pintar funding signifies the company’s commitment to developing an integrated health service ecosystem with Smart Clinics in Indonesia. “This synergy can be started from the referral system, laboratory, and supply chain,” he said.

For information, the Smart Clinic under the auspices of PT Medigo Teknologi Kesehatan (Medigo) offers a solution through a profit sharing system with the clinic owner. This collaboration is in the form of providing technology solutions to digitize business processes and services, standardization, and investment that can help clinic owners develop their businesses and increase value-based care.

In order to realize this integrated health ecosystem, Klinik Pintar continues to develop the Klinik OS (Operating System) digital platform that digitizes operations and empowers clinics through digital. It includes online and offline end-to-end services, comprehensive standardization of SOPs, inventory and managerial management, and digitally connecting between clinics in the network and other supporting partners.

Service development in 2022

DailySocial.id had a chance to interview Medigo’s Co-founder & CEO, Harya Bimo regarding the future business plan using this new funding. On this occasion, the man who is familiarly called Bimo emphasized that from now on, Medigo will use Klinik Pintar as the branding of its services in the future.

In accordance with its mission to become a clinic supply chain provider in Indonesia, this new funding will be used to expand the Klinik Pintar network and services. Currently, Klinik Pintar already has 120 clinics available in 60 cities throughout Indonesia.

“We have proven that the framework [through the clinical supply chain model] is successful. Therefore, in the next two years, we want to strengthen existing services by increasing the value of the Smart network through service interoperability,” he said.

One of which is service synergy with the ecosystem owned by BMHS. To strengthen this synergy, BMHS has invested in series A shares totaling 2339 shares which were issued and issued in Klinik Pintar Technologies Pte Ltd, with a direct share investment of $1.5 million or equivalent to Rp21 billion on 8 November. BMHS is part of the clinic’s operational partner through the Smart Clinic digital network.

This synergy will be performed by the Bundamedik Healthcare System, which is an integrated health service ecosystem belonging to PT Bundamedik Tbk, and consists of a network of hospitals, clinics, laboratories, to medical evacuation.

His team will implement a digital-based referral system, both to hospitals and laboratories, by utilizing the ecosystem owned by BMHS. According to Bimo, so far the referral system in Indonesia is still paper-based, which is considered inefficient for patients and health workers.

With digital referrals, doctors and health workers can see the patient’s previous track record. In another example, a patient who is referred for laboratory tests can collect the results at the Klinik Pintar.

“We are trying to empower existing clinics. Considering that not all clinics have laboratories, we take an approach with a network strategy. Now, BMHS has a similar idea to what we are looking for. Our main synergy is to address the needs in areas that so far do not have access to laboratories. We “We will develop this network synergy with BMHS. Our target next year is to build 400 clinics,” he explained.

In another use case, Klinik Pintar will also improve interoperability in the supply chain by connecting clinics and suppliers (principals). Thus, clinics can order various medical equipment and health products, such as pharmaceuticals, vaccines, syringes, and gloves.

“We want to go national now. Currently, we supply gradually in Jabodetabek. Our next target is Java and outside Java. At the very least, our target is to be able to penetrate new cities every quarter. We are also collaborating with big pharmaceutical players because our permits are not distributors,” Bimo said.

In addition, his team will open new access for maternal and child services. Bimo assessed that this segment was still underserved in Indonesia, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. Klinik Pintar will provide a number of services, including home care and telemedicine through video calls.

Finally, his team is also developing a number of health programs as a preventive measure for serious diseases (diabetes, hypertension, heart) through a health plan. Currently, the program is only marketed to B2B consumers.

“Many internal diseases can’t actually be handled via chat and one meeting. An offline and online approach is required, not only teleconsultation, but also monitoring. This is one of the challenges we see in hospitals and clinics, not in handling severe symptoms,” he said.

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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian

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Karyakarsa Bags $500,000 Seed Funding from Accelerating Asia, Sketchnote Partners, and Angel Investors

Creator appreciation marketplace Karyakarsa has raised $500,000 or Rp7 billion seed round from Accelerating Asia, Sketchnote Partners, and high-profile angel investors. The company will use the fund to develop new features and explore the regional market.

According to Karyakarsa’s Co-Founder and CEO, Ario Tamat, the platform has served more than 35,000 creators, from journalists, models, illustrators, 3D artists, and many more. Karyakarsa also has more than 275,000 registered users as fans/supporters.

“In October alone the number of transactions via the KaryaKarsa platform has increased 60 percent month on month and we’ve increased the number of new creators on the platform by 135 percent. The new funds will enable us to expand our offering and empower more creators to develop sustainable livelihoods. We are grateful for the trust our partners have placed in our vision,” said Ario.

Like Patreon and Tribe, Karyakarsa allows creators to monetize their works by building a fan base. They can sell their creations and get support directly through the platform. Creators will get 90% of the revenue, while the 10% goes for platform fees.

Karyakarsa is founded by Ario Tamat and Aria Rajasa Masna in 2019.

“As second time founders, the KaryaKarsa team has deep experience in scaling a business with the founders also being creatives themselves. They are positioned to take advantage of existing global disaggregation trends and efficiently help creatives monetise their projects. Having grown the value of transactions through the platform 40 percent in October, KaryaKarsa’s traction is set to continue and Accelerating Asia is proud to be an early investor into the company as they build the creative economy in Indonesia,” Craig Bristol Dixon, General Partner of Accelerating Asia said.

To help KaryaKarsa scale, the company and Board have appointed J. P. Ellis as an official advisor. A seasoned Jakarta-based founder, technology executive and policy leader in the financial technology industry, Ellis said, “KaryaKarsa has achieved product-market-fit in a valuable and fast-growing space in the creative economy. Their growth and success are a proxy for Indonesian creative entrepreneurs. I am honoured to join the team as an advisor and excited about what we can accomplish together to benefit the creative economy and the livelihoods of millions of creators and their families.”

NFT initiative

New creator monetization models are constantly being explored, including with Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT). Karyakarsa has partnered with crypto-marketplace Tokocrypto to enable creators to sell their works through the NFT Marketplace, TokoMall. Similar initiatives are gaining popularity in the global market.

Several adjustments were implemented, for example locking the NFT price with Rupiah to avoid high fluctuations. Some NFTs can be claimed with physical products.

It’s a good sign for Indonesia’s creator ecosystem to monetize their (digital) works. A few creators at Karyakarsa can earn Rp30-50 million per month.

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Non-Fungible Token (NFT) 101: Accelerating Adoption in Indonesia

The global non-fungible token (NFT) fever which occurred since early this year has opened up opportunities for local players to offer easy ownership of (digital) art objects that have been absent for collectors. This year alone, there are at least four NFT marketplace platforms available in Indonesia. Those are TokoMall, Kolektibel, ChickenKingNFT (owned by KFC), and Paras Digital, offering its own unique value.

According to Wette.de data, the global NFT has $43.08 billion market cap and a trading volume of around $3.6 billion. Meanwhile, according to DappRadar, NFT sales volume jumped to $10.7 billion in Q3 2021, rises over eight times from the previous quarter.

The world’s largest NFT marketplace, OpenSea, recorded sales volumes of up to $3.4 billion in August 2021. The activities remained strong through September when global stock markets faltered. Rising cryptocurrency prices during the COVID-19 pandemic is often said to drive the growth of the NFT market — as people use cryptocurrencies to buy NFTs — but analysts say crypto assets have value, regardless of market conditions.

As of October, Beeple still ranks first on the list of top NFT artists with a $145.03 million total artwork value. According to Cryptoart.io, he has sold 1346 artworks so far with an average sale of $107,752. The second-ranked artist, Pak, following at a farther distance with a total value of $56.41 million.

NFT 101

From various literatures, NFT is most easily understood as a unique digital asset. The asset exists in various industries, from digital art, virtual real estate, to collectibles, games, and more. Basically, any type of media can be printed or tokenized and converted into NFT: art, trading cards, memes, gifs, video clips, audio clips, tweets, this article — you name it. Once tokenized, these assets can be bought, sold and traded using cryptocurrencies.

Why is the world flocking to NFT? The US’ serial entrepreneur, Gary Vaynerchuck (or “GaryVee”) said, there are three added values NFT offers, utility, access, and social currency. If you understand the concepts behind membership cards, credit card rewards, tickets to special events for VIP members, then you understand NFT.

“If you’ve ever purchased skins or other virtual items for your video games, you understand NFTs. The reason you wanted that item was to be a utility in a world that you cared about, or to have the clout and bragging rights amongst your friends and others. NFTs are going to extend that same utility and “flex” of social currency to everything else,” Vaynerchuck explained.

He continued, the reasons people buy NFT are the same reasons people wear designer-made products, drive luxury cars, or hang pictures of important figures on the wall. It’s the same reason people care about blue ticks on Instagram.

“Years down the line, I believe that we will all be checking out each other’s digital wallets and bonding over the mutual interests in our NFT purchases. Everyone will have some kind of NFT project, the same way everyone has a social media account.”

On one hand, NFT will help ordinary people realize their true destiny as artists. This method is similar to social media platforms that transforms people to influencers. NFT will open the door for so many people with artistic inclinations to explore avenues they never thought possible.

There’s another point, NFT is revolutionizing IP ownership. The fact that artists will continue to earn royalties from reselling their digital work will empower content creators in a never-seen-before way. Each popular NFT marketplace has its own rules and preferences for regulating and paying royalties.

On Rarible, an artist can tokenize and manage its own NFT sales. For example, while making a listing on Rarible, one can set the royalty percentage to earn on each (re)sale on the secondary market.

In the first stage, after minting a digital art product for the first time, the artist gets all the sales share after deducting the platform commission.

On the subsequent sales, the artist will earn a 20% commission on each sale, even if they are no longer directly involved in the sale. Unfortunately, when the goods are transferred to another NFT platform, such as OpenSea, the royalty scheme is no longer valid and cannot be transferred.

Ideosource’s Co-founder and Managing Partner, Edward Chamdani explained, royalties are the most important thing for every creator. He took an example in the music industry. Previously, the medium used for listening to music was through vinyls, cassettes, and CDs. Over time, platforms like iTunes and Spotify arrived and helped the supply chain to the end consumer.

However, its existence shuts down the previously established supply chain as musicians can no longer print cassettes to CDs. In the end, music labels were affected and eventually went out of business. In fact, the musicians’ biggest income comes from selling physical goods as the source of royalties.

“Musicians were not really preserved since the beginning, from royalties through CD sales, to the presence of digital platforms which means they no longer produce CDs. The royalties obtained from the digital platform are considered to be in long term, compared to the CD sales with bigger up front revenue,” Edward said.

Royalty is considered to be the reason for many artists intrigued to enter the NFT scheme. Apart from Rarible and OpenSea, there are many marketplace options offer unique propositions. These include Axie Marketplace, CryptoPunks, NBA Top Shot Marketplace, SuperRare, KnownOrigin, Foundation, Nifty Gateway, Solanart, and Hic Et Nunc.

The last platform, based on DailySocial’s observation, is a favorite destination for local artists to sell their work. One of the musicians, Souljah, has used NFT to market the artwork for the song entitled “Keep On Moving”. Souljah released a limited number of NFTs and stop releasing on September 30, 2021 through its own website and selling digital merchandise through Hic Et Nunc.

NFT in local wisdom

The NFT hype encourages people to try this platform as an alternative investment commodity, supported by the presence of secondary markets on various popular marketplace platforms. Nonetheless, NFT is still a very new market, therefore, being prudent is mandatory.

Despite the risks, many global marketplace platforms are not very friendly for Indonesians with limited insights to the NFT scheme. In order to make purchases on NFT platform, collectors need a wallet that is compatible with the NFT-enabled blockchain network in their preferred marketplace.

If you plan to buy and sell NFT via an Ethereum-based blockchain platform, a compatible wallet is required. For example, OpenSea is compatible with Metamask, Bitski, Fortmatic, WalletConnect and other wallets. It’s similar to put money in a wallet, you need to fill the wallet with a certain amount of crypto assets before buying, registering, or printing NFTs. In addition, it is necessary to find out what crypto assets are used by the marketplace you want to use.

Finally, create an account on the marketplace. In most marketplaces, the process of registering, creating NFT, selling, and buying on the platform incurs a blockchain network fee with an amount depends on which blockchain-based system is used.

The majority of NFT marketplaces only accept payments with Etherium coins. There are others that accept fiat currency and more standard payment methods, such as PayPal, but this is quite rare. Due to such conditions, NFT transactions considered to be expensive in ETH. As of November 10, 2021, 1 ETH costs IDR 67.6 million ($4,808).

Kolektibel is a new NFT marketplace player that further explored this market, it was designed as friendly as possible, therefore, NFT could be quickly adopted. Kolelktible adopted NBA Top Shot to Indonesia by utilizing fiat currency through payment gateways for their NFT transactions.

Kolektibel’s CEO, Pungkas Riandika explained that every NFT transaction is carried out with fiat currency and the payment is integrated with popular digital payment instruments, such as GoPay, OVO, Virtual Account, debit/credit cards, therefore, you can make payment via Alfamart and Indomaret.

Kolektibel is different from other NFT marketplaces as it stands on the Vexanium public blockchain network for recording NFT ownership. Vexanium is said to be the only Indonesian based public blockchain with a legal entity in the form of a foundation (Vexanium Technology Nusantara Foundation) created by Danny Baskara.

Vexanium does not charge any fees. Unlike other public blockchain networks that charge gas fees per NFT transaction. This strategy is possible because Vexanium uses the DPOS (delegated proof of stake) mechanism. This is a variant that provides operational benefits with very efficient energy and environmentally friendly.

“Furthermore, as Vexanium has the ability to approach block producers (decision maker) in the Vexanium DAO entity. Such decision as cost determination (resources fees) associated with NFT. These things cannot be found in other public blockchains,” he told DailySocial.

Pungkas said, this is expected to be a breakthrough for Indonesians as they can directly collect NFT in an easy way. “If you pay attention to transaction using crypto in DeFi, it requires a long process, one of which is to own a wallet, including a gas fee, and so on. It makes NFT adoption difficult.”

Kolektibel’s approach differs from its peers in terms of payment methods. TokoMall only provides TKO crypto assets for NFT exchange, Paras Digital uses NEAR, and ChickenKingNFT uses ETH. All three are utilizing the integration with MetaMask wallet to transact.

	TokoMall	Kolektibel	Paras Digital	ChickenKing NFT
Blockchain network	Binance Smart Chain (BSC)	Vexanium	NEAR Protocol	Ethereum (OpenSea)
Coin/ Payment methods	TKO	Fiat/IDR, through payment gateway	NEAR	ETH
Wallet	MetaMask, WalletConnect	None	MetaMask	anyting compatible with OpenSea
NFT asset focus	Digital arts by artists and creative community	IP brand owners of such categories, sports, creative, legendary moments and culture	Digital collectible, including games, comics, toys and arts	Characterized KFC chicken mascot

Market differentiation

Each NFT marketplace has its own target market to popularize NFT in Indonesia. TokoMall, for example, targets local creators, consisting of artists, digital artists, and creative communities with good reputations to enter NFT. To date, there are 40 partners who have joined, including Nevertoolavish, MaximallFootwear, DAMN! I Love Indonesia, Banyan Core, Si Juki, ONIC E-Sports, Afternoon, Mr. Kinur, Karya Karsa, Jakarta Metaverse, and Museum of Toys.

This way, each creator with a fan base can easily attract the mass market to know more about NFT. TokoMall allows collectors to exchange their collected NFT for physical merchandise from merchant partners at TokoMall through the company’s newly released TokoSurprise feature.

“The difference with other platforms is that we are trying to push digital meets reality, so these collectors have the opportunity to exchange NFTs for real goods. Therefore, it’s not just a digital collection,” Tokocrypto’s VP Marketing, Adytia Raflein told DailySocial.

Raflein also mentioned that TokoMall is expected to encourage artists and brands to be creative in the NFT world with a local platform at much friendlier costs, rather than having to use a global platform.

With TokoSuprise mechanism, creators who release a limited number of NFT works are marketed through TokoMall. Every collector who buys the work has the right to exchange it for physical merchandise to TokoMall. In the future, TokoMall will collaborate with more creators from various business verticals, such as consumer companies to the e-sports industry, thererfore, NFT can become more mainstream in Indonesia.

Since two and a half months since TokoMall was launched, it already has more than 8,500 collectors, with over 5 thousand NFT works produced by 40 official partners. In terms of sales, over 250 NFTs have reported being sold with a transaction value of Rp200 billion.

Meanwhile, in its early days, Kolektibel entered the basketball segment through its inaugural partnership with the Indonesian Basketball League (IBL). For IBL, this innovation is a way to bring basketball and IBL fans closer together with their athletes. IBL prepares video documentation of matches, carefully curated based on golden moments in the match.

The shortlist of moments is visually repackaged and registered into the smart contract blockchain, which makes each asset record its ownership history. This strategy opens new revenue channels for athletes and clubs through the NFT sales.

After IBL, Kolektibel will target other IP owners with assets in various categories, such as sports, creative, legendary moments, and culture. Through its derivatives, there will be more NFT assets to collect. “Sport is quite dynamics and closer to the community. Therefore, this category is our step to further understand how the future development of NFT will be,” Pungkas said.

Paras Digital, on the other hand, has ambitions to be a pioneer in the digital transformation of collectibles, including games, comics, toys, and digital arts through smart contract capabilities and blockchain technology. Therefore, the platform targets pop-culture enthusiast, such as fandoms and gamers focusing on China and Southeast Asia.

Eventually, ChickenKingNFT leverages the existing KFC’s solid brand to attract new collectors. Through its website, ChickenKing offers 4,848 uniquely generated limited edition NFTs. The story of the Chicken King, refers to 6 chickens from 6 different backgrounds and characteristics, competing with each other to prove which one stands as the best chicken in the universe.

KFC offers every member the opportunity to receive discounts on physical merchandise and partner stores, attend exclusive community gatherings, and others. Currently, ChickenKingNFT can be purchased through OpenSea.

First step to go mainstream

The presence of these local marketplace platforms paved the way for more NFT use cases. Globally, many IP owners from various industry verticals have entered NFT, such as gaming, fashion, music, logistics, real estate, identification and documentation, and many other things. It seems that is just a matter of time until all of this happens in Indonesia.

“This technology [NFT] soon to be mainstream when it’s due,” Edward added.

Vaynerchuck believes that NFT is a representative of major cultural change. History teaches humanity that through change, comes skepticism and mass confusion. Many who scoff at the NFT’s idea or viability are simply do not understand the larger implications. Like the concept of online dating in the ’90s or have a trip with strangers (Uber and Lyft), every idea is “crazy” to the point where it’s deemed not.

NFT will continue to be seen as “fad” by those who haven’t changed their mindset to embrace where the world is going.

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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian

Michael Saputra: Success and Failure in Building Startups is Part of Career Path

After experiencing ups and downs in his career, Michael Saputra, who was the founder of food delivery service startup Klik-Eat and fast food startup Black Garlic, is now COO at PasarPolis.

With extensive experience working in the Indonesian startup since 2012, Michael is currently reluctant to (re)build a new startup and prefers to work at an established startup such as PasarPolis.

He shared stories of success and failure during his time in the industry.

Corporate working is not enough

Michael Saputra with Black Garlic team / DailySocial

In early days of his return from studies in the United States, he had worked in the corporate ecosystem. The atmosphere and the existing routine were not quite match with Michael’s passion. Along with his friend, Willy Haryanto, and other Co-Founders, he started Klik-Eat in early 2012.

Klik-Eat is a food delivery service to provide a solution for those who want to avoid traffic, but still available to enjoy the delicious food from their favorite restaurants.

“My first experience when I started building Klik-Eat was how the company could scale-up. It’s still very limited in resources and the ecosystem we had before, but we were able to run a business,” Michael said.

In addition to its core food delivery business, Klik-Eat has expanded by releasing the online catering service Papa Bento. Klik-Eat had received an award by representing Indonesia in the 2012 Echelon. Klik-Eat covers delivery in the Jakarta, Tangerang, and Bandung areas.

The success of Kik-Eat attracted a Japanese company. In 2014, the largest food delivery service in Japan, Yume no Machi Souzou Iinkai (currently referred to as Yume no Machi) increased its shareholding in Klik-Eat delivery service from 19% to a majority (above 50%).

Klik-Eat has rebranded to Foodspot and directly owned by the Japan team. Michael Saputra and Willy Haryanto, the two surviving co-founders, left the company and founded a new startup called Black Garlic.

Similar to Klik-Eat, Black Garlic offers ready-to-eat products and ingredients directly delivered by its internal team. They work closely with William Wongso Kuliner’s team — with Olivia Wongso as the company’s Chief Product Officer.

The brand-new concept of online catering made it difficult at that time for Black Garlic to develop and be accepted by the community. Eventually, the company had to shut down the service in 2017.

“I have never had any regrets with the Black Garlic shutdown. […] It seems that what we are offering is too early. It might be different if we developed that today, when the situation and conditions [of the food delivery ecosystem] were supportive,” Michael said.

After Black Garlic, Michael joined the car sharing platform with a special automated system for Jakarta residents, Hipcar. The company was founded by Leo Tanady and debuted in 2015 as the first car sharing transportation service in Indonesia. Michael, as the COO considered the Hipcar services have great potential.

“I always have passion in technology. I can see with Hipcar something good could be created with the concept of car rental using other people. At that time I believed in the concept and decided to join Hipcar,” said Michael.

After two years with Hipcar, Michael decided to join Xiaomi Indonesia as THE Head of Operations. He had only been working for 6 months before returned to the startup industry and joined the insurtech startup PasarPolis.

Being an investor is not his passion

Pasar Polis’ COO Michael Saputra with CEO Cleosent Randing / Source

With his experience on building two startups, Michael currently has no desire to build a new startup. He devoted his current time to develop PasarPolis. He wants to grow the company and make it profitable.

“I am not the type of person who likes to do side projects. When I am involved in one thing, I will focus 100%. It is my ideal strategy in order to be successful, to focus only on one area,” Michael said.

His current position as PasarPolis’ COO is expected to balance other C-levels in the company. Michael really appreciate the founder and CEO of PasarPolis, Cleosent Randing. He said, it is already difficult to build a startup with a co-founder, especially when you do it independently. It takes a strong motivation and vision to be able to build and survive.

When most serial entrepreneurs have “changed quadrants” to become investors, Michael said that he was not interested in following this step. Positioning himself as a builder, not as a visionary, Michael is more motivated in building a startup into a big company and growing positively. However, he opens up to new technologies and trends, and keeps an eye on what investors are currently paying attention to.

“Being asked if I’m interested in becoming a full time investor, the answer is no. It’s not my passion as an investor, I’m more interested in operations and not really into predicting the next big thing,” Michael said.

He said, the process of establishing a startup in previous time and the current era is very different. Before the today’s startup ecosystem developed, the business focus was to present a platform that could sell products from offline to online. Meanwhile, more startups are now looking to complete niche and specific solutions for the wider community.

What startup founders do today is even more challenging and risky than in 2012.

“From the investor’s point of view, I also see that more investors are coming in, offering large capital to startups. The money and the stake are different from investors in the past,” Michael said.

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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian

East Ventures Leads Investment for TreeDots, Providing Social Commerce for Groceries

TreeDots, a Singapore-based social commerce startup for groceries (also maximizing the decent potential of the leftovers), announced a series A funding round of $11 million (over 157 billion Rupiah) led by East Ventures (Growth Fund) and Amasia. There are other investors join this round, including ACTIVE Fund, Seeds Capital, Nir Eyal (writer), and Fiona Xie (actress).

The funds will be used for platform development, the company’s food logistics optimization, TreeLogs and regional expansion, post entering the Malaysian market last year. The company didn’t mention its next target country.

TreeDots’ Co-founder & CEO, Tylor Jong said to DailySocial that his team is currently in discussion regarding the plan. “We have plans to expand our regional coverage and we are in the middle of comprehensive exploration [the next country] where it will make sense for us,” Jong said.

TreeDots was founded by Tylor Jong, Lau Jia Cai, and Nicholas Lim in 2018. The company is a marketplace for surplus and imperfect groceries, in response to the wasted food isssues, especially decent food that is being thrown away. TreeDots technology helps redistribute unsold inventory from suppliers to businesses such as restaurants and cafes, enabling them to obtain affordable food supplies.

Globally, there is one-third food produced for consumption is wasted. In Asia, most of these problems are caused by inefficient supply chains. Imperfect food in terms of aesthetic is often dumped even though it is considered decent as the ones commonly found on grocery store shelves. This surplus food is often burned or left to rot, producing methane and other greenhouse gases with 86 times more harmful impact on global warming than carbon dioxide.

“We realized that grocery store chains tend not to buy a huge chicken or in the imperfect shape because it would look weird on the shelves. However, F&B outlets could not care less as it will be cut and processed to be served. Therefore, they’ll be very happy to be able to buy the same products for up to 90 percent cheaper than the alternatives. It encourages us to start a surplus food marketplace to match the supply and demand for these products,” Jong explained separately in an official statement, Thursday (11/11).

TreeDots’s target market is F&B franchises and social commerce to accommodate group purchasing. Thus, consumers can buy the same product with much cheaper price. TreeDots sends multiple orders at once to a single address and group buyers can pick up their individual orders from that address. It allows buyers to save on logistics costs, as well as reduce emissions compared to traditional e-commerce models that require a special trip for each order.

In terms of sales. prior to joining TreeDots, suppliers often paid for a delivery service to send their waste to a landfill. In this case, they can now earn additional income from these imperfect products in a way helping to preserve the earth.

TreeDots also helps digitize suppliers’ operations using an app, and they recently launched TreeLogs, a cold-chain logistics to improve the supplier’s operation efficiency. This vertically integrated ecosystem allows upstream suppliers to focus their efforts on their area of excellence, food processing and production.

“Food wasted has becocme a trillion dollar issue, but what excites us is the fact that suppliers are starting to use the TreeDots system for their entire income, not just leftovers. When one of their trucks can make one delivery to an area, TreeDots can make five deliveries on the same trip by working with the entire supplier group. The increased network density allows for lower logistics costs and emission levels,” East Ventures’ Managing Partner, Roderick Purwana said.

TreeDots Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) has grown more than 4 times year on year. “There are a lot of businesses serving the F&B industry that comes with difficulty during the pandemic. However, we are very impressed with the ability of the TreeDots team to drive exponential growth amid difficult circumstances,” Amasia’s Managing Partner, who also led TreeDots’ initial funding round in 2019, John Kim said.

As TreeDots business expands, Janet Sarah Neo, Vice President, Corporate Sustainability & Government Affairs at Lazada and Executive Board Member at Temasek Foundation Liveability, will join TreeDots as a Board Observer.

Startups with resembled energy

With the resembled energy to maximize the potential of surplus food, a local startup called Surplus has launched in Indonesia. The platform allows F&B businesses to sell excees and imperfect yet decent food products at certain hours before closing the shop with a half price discount.

More than 400 Surplus partners come from across Jabodetabek, Bandung and Yogyakarta. Most of them are engaged in businesses that produce a lot of excess food products, such as bakery & pastry, cafes, restaurants, hotels, supermarkets, catering, and agriculture.

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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian

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