Coffeeshop’s Creative Strategies Amid the Tight Market Competition

Coffeeshop business becomes very mushrooming for the past few years. More brands are coming and the competition rate is getting higher than ever. Eventually, each player is required to create innovation for loyal customers. Are you expecting some tips?

In order to provide you with some answers, #SelasaStartup has invited Janji Jiwa’s Founder & CEO, Billy Kurniawan as a speaker. Janji Jiwa is a coffeeshop with grab-and-go concept. Since its first debut two years ago, Janji Jiwa has expanding its branches into 800 outlets throughout Indonesia, thanks to the partnership program. Here’s an exerpt of the session:

Clarify the motive, is it passion or just following the “hype”

For some young entrepreneurs who grow interests in the coffee industry, he suggests them to clarify whether this is a passion or just another trend-following act. He thought this is one essential foundation before they can step further into the next process, such as going on research, supplier-hunting, exploring ways of roasting, to the pricing area.

When you follow your passion, you can have special added value to a certain brand. The coffee alone, he continued, still has large opportunity for exploration.

Simply put, coffee is one of Indonesia’s main commodity with such great followers. Everybody, of all ages, social status, gender, can have a certain market for each brand.

“Therefore, discover the identity first and do market research for the right target. Coffee needs personal attachment, a philosophic story. Janji Jiwa, it’s all about passion, we present for those in need for a company to achieve their passion,” he said.

If only for the trend, without particularly strong passion in the coffee industry, it’ll be harder for brand to stay in the game. In fact, the target is to compete among brands and provide an added value other competitors’ can’t afford.

Regarding competition, if you only desired to win, it’ll only lead to a price war. The quality and other components must be put aside in order to provide a cup of cheap coffee.

Create a product-market fit

In the food and beverages (FnB) industry, a product-market fit is required to produce a result to meet consumer’s demand. Billy recommends us to use the five senses. In terms of sight, make sure the logo represented the inner brand.

In terms of taste, this should be a highlight since the tongue never lies. Next, the touch of its packaging should be made simple, nothing too fancy.

Fourth, the smell tells everything about the coffee’s “aroma”. It’s a key to brew a good coffee for we talk about quality. Last, the hearing about one’s brand acceptance by its consumer, the word-of-mouth will surely travel fast.

“For the new brand, it’s better to first find the market, simply by creating a survey through samples.”

Janji Jiwa always held a routine internal survey for every new product to launch. There will be results on consumer response, is it good-to-go or require improvements.

Once you gain profit, he also suggests focusing on growth. The extra money should turn into investment until the brand sustainable enough.

However, he said to be the leading player is very important and the market competition for the grab-and-go concept is more intense.

No such thing as zero cost, but minimal cost applied

In order to start a new business, Billy highlights the fact that no such thing as zero cost. The coffee business, if adjusted to the target consumer, requires equipment that is not cheap. It’s a form of long-term investment.

He said, Janji Jiwa was founded with an initial capital of Rp70 million. The nominal has included the rental fee for the first outlet at ITC Kuningan, Jakarta. Back then, he wanted to prove whether the hypothesis of grab-and-go coffee shops could really be a real business.

“When you know that the outlet has high traffic, it must do continuous improvement. This means investing in better tools, therefore, consumers not disappointed. ”

In terms of marketing, Janji Jiwa relies heavily on Instagram as a marketing medium. In order to have strong brand awareness and exposure, but thin capital, he decided to collaborate product barter with local brands.

“Creative marketing is important for it should be able to survive with the current capital. Collaboration with local brands such as product barter is better hence giving money is another cost.”

Penetration through online platform

The grab-and-go coffee shop concept has been very supported by the presence of GrabFood and GoFood for online delivery. Billy told the rate has reached 30% of total bookings every day.

This concept can be further strengthened indeed, once the brand has its own application. However, application alone is not enough. It must provide added value for consumers with some features, such as loyalty programs, nearby locations, free merchandise, and so on. “Janji Jiwa is on to that [for application].”

Moving to adjust trends, he continued, is a way to anticipate that a brand is not only limited to its hype. Therefore, Janji Jiwa has released other vertical products for toasts menu.

“We can make sure the synergy between the two brands [Janji Jiwa and Jiwa Toast] can work. Thus, we create our own toast menu, we didn’t use sweet toppings because there are already too many out there.”

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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian

Introducing Kodi, a SaaS Platform for Cooperative Performance Revolution

If there is anyone who looks down or not even familiar with the term cooperative, they should know the fact that 12% of the world population are members of cooperatives and it also employed around 280 million people.

For almost all around the world, cooperative industry plays an essential part in the country’s economy. In Kenya, it contributes around 43% of PDB, also 42% of Japan’s populations are members of cooperatives, while in Singapore, 1 of 2 people is part of cooperative industry. In Indonesia, cooperative industry projected to reach more than 120,000 units with contributionn to PDB around 5%.

Although the number gap is quite large with other countries, cooperative is still a crucial economic line in this country. Ther is a reason to put cooperative as one of the ministries in Indonesia. Kodi (Digital Cooperative), a startup founded in 2018, agreed on this term.

Kodi‘s CEO & Founder, Inra Sumahamijaya said there are 37 million people registered as members of cooperatives or around 13% of the total Indonesian population. However, he thought the big number is not facilitated with end-to-end information, particularly for financial well-being.

“Cooperatives also have problems with transparency in fund management, revenue flow, and management due to difficult access to digital technology solutions. Even if there is, the price is not affordable by small and micro cooperatives,” Sumahamijaya told DailySocial.

With such huge market potential and the following problems, Kodi arrived with a software as a service (SaaS) platform solution. The Kodi platform allows each cooperative unit to use a simplified banking system for recording online and offline cooperative transactions. Their platform can also be used for cooperative membership management, end-of-year meetings, as well as cashier applications.

“Kodi monetize with various channels, one is using subscription with Rp1,000 cost per member per month,” he added.

Kodi targets various types of cooperatives, ranging from employee cooperatives to savings and loan cooperatives. But so far Inra claimed to focus on employee cooperatives and community cooperatives first. At present they have pocketed more than 30 cooperatives as clients, some of which come from national banks, private banks, financial authorities, doctors’ associations, to retail stores.

In terms of funding, Kodi is still in the pre-seed phase of a number of angel investors. With market potential and available technology, Sumahamijaya estimates that more cooperative digitization platforms will play. He said, this will bring a positive impact on the domestic economy.

“Kodi is confident with cooperative vertical future to freshen up and modern to make bigger contribution to Indonesia’s economy,” he said.

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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian

Webtrace Announces Seed Funding, Developing Logistics Management Platform

To date, the truck-based logistics industry is still on-demand and viral in Indonesia. With geographical characteristics varied of land, water and air; land transportation remains the leading way for shipping and distributing goods, including being the backbone of the e-commerce business.

In this country, land logistics estimated to spend about US$290 billion in 2020. Aside from the large market, total commercialized vehicles (9.6 million units in 2019) has created tighter competition.

Webtrace intends to be a useful platform for fleet management to have a technology solution for the more efficient logistics business, also to improve productivity and security. It can work using IoT solutions and sensors to produce data compilation and real-time analytics.

“The tight service and price competition among land transportation providers and high non-transparent costs, has caused low-profit margins. The solution we are trying to offer is IoT which regulates and optimizes vehicle utilities, drivers, and reduces unnecessary non-transparent costs,” Webtrace’s CEO & Co-founder, Erwin Subroto said.

Particularly, Webtrace performs a thorough analysis from two devices. First, through application for drivers using GPS Engine App on smartphones. Also, they offer Fleet Solution, a small unit equipped with each vehicle. Both are to send real-time data to be managed on the platform.

Secures seed funding

Currently, Webtrace has owned 3500 units registered (signed a contract) trucks and it’s onboarding. Units connected to the platforms are distributed around Sumatera, Java, Borneo, Madura, and Sulawesi.

Although with the recent rise of similar players, Webtrace stated the marketshare is still wide open, as the massive land transportations with passengers reaching 12 million units.

“We aware of similar solution providers, but the total fleet connected to our platform and competitors is around 250 thousand units now. The real challenge is how to educate those land transportation players,” Subroto added.

In order to accelerate business growth, Webtrace has secured seed funding led by Prasetia Dwidharma. Also participated in this funding was Astra Ventura.

With the fresh funding, the company plans to toughen marketing activities and acquire more customers while increasing sales.

“Technology implementation is currently a must to increase productivity, competitiveness, and accelerate the right decision making. The solutions we provide are expected to give clients an edge in industry competition, and in turn, enable Webtrace to help the transportation industry become more secure and cost-effective,” Subroto said.

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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian

Investree Raises 382 Billion Rupiah Funding of Series C’s First Round

The p2p lending startup, Investree announced the first round of Series C funding worth of $23.5 million (more than 382 billion Rupiah) led by MUIP, subsidiary of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), and BRI Ventures. Other investors participated are SBI Holdings and 9F Fintech Holding Group, both are the existing investors in Series B round.

In the online pers conference, Investree’s Co-founder & CEO, Adrian Gunadi explained, the fresh money will be channeled to tighten the company’s position as the leading p2p lending for SMEs and to support business in Thailand and the Philippines.

“The funding has closed since March 2020. In terms of close round, we’re still discussing in parallel with other potential investors. Whether there’s an adjustment of the total [funding], it’s still an ongoing process. It’s not because we’re currently well-capitalized,” he said on Wed (4/8).

Adrian also mentioned the funding received in the midst of this pandemic is proving investors’ strong confidence in the company’s strategy and management team. “A solid financial platform and conditions enable companies to tackle the current climate with confidence.”

The MUFG and BRI entrance through each of its ventures to Investree allows the company to deepen the partnership. MUFG is a shareholder of Bank Danamon. Synergy with the two banks, he added, is not new. Previously, Investree had begun to establish since 2016 with Bank Danamon and 2018 with BRI.

MUIP’s President and CEO’s Nobutake Suzuki said that he believes to invest in Investree because the company had good fundamentals in terms of performance, legality, and a mature background in the financial world. In addition, he saw the industry, Investree has a great opportunity to lead the lending market for SMEs.

CEO Nicko Widjaja added on his team’s interest is due to the success in serving underserved business segments, such as the creative industries. For conventional financial institutions, this segment tends to be full of risk. “We believe the collaboration between the BRI group and Investree, established since 2018, can contribute significantly to Indonesian economic growth.”

Investree secured series B funding with an undisclosed value in mid-2018. At that time, the round was led by SBI Holdings Inc., then followed by MCI, Persada Capital, Endeavor Catalyst, 9F Fintech Holdings Group, and Kejora Ventures.

Investree’s next target

Adrian saw opportunity amidst the ongoing pandemic, the company is to enter the growing industry sector, health and telecommunications. These two sectors are considered to have significant opportunities and can be helped through financing, especially now that the health industry is at the forefront in fighting a pandemic.

In addition, to reduce the rate of bad loans, the company has established a series of risk mitigations, such as using credit insurance, restructuring and rescheduling, which are seen on a case-by-case basis. How the borrowers are performing and how far Covid-19 is impacting their business.

“To date, we are discussing with several borrowers from hospitality and retail. We see case by case what we can do. Whether the impact is short-term, needs to be restructured. We have prepared the template and are ready to submit it to lenders because we are not the financiers. ”

Regarding the company’s expansion into Thailand and the Philippines, it is still in the stage of processing business licenses. If nothing gets in the way, it is estimated no later than the third quarter of this year, license can be issued. “Currently, the licensing process is still according to our plan and there has been no change.”

“We enter these two countries by partnering with locals who know the business and regulation in the area.”

Until the beginning of April 2020, the company recorded a total loan of IDR 5.11 trillion and a disbursed loan value of IDR 3.83 trillion. The average rate of return starts at 16% and TKB90 90%. There are 1297 borrowers consisting of individuals and institutions.

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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian

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The Story of IoT Based Solution Developers in Indonesia

The Internet of Things (IoT) technology is getting more popular for the last five years because it becomes one of few strategic components that support the industry 4.0. Simply put, the IoT technology allows various kinds of electronics to communicate and circulate data, either cross-devices or with other systems or apps.

Last year, the government through Kemkominfo issued regulations regarding LoRA WAN frequency as stated in the Regulation of the Director General of Resources and Equipment of Post and Information Technology Number 3 in 2019 on Technical Requirements for Low Power Wide Area Telecommunications Equipment and/or Devices.

The IoT-based solutions players appreciate this regulation. It’s just some regulations are still expected, including providing a discount for import fees for spare parts or raw materials imported from abroad. This discount policy is considered to be able to encourage the IoT industry to develop faster considering that many devices are still imported from abroad, especially China.

Regulating foreign companies and accessible import

One of the startups in this sector is Habibi Garden, which for the last two years has focused on helping farmer groups in West Java. Habibi Garden CEO Irsan Rajamin told DailySocial that import policy was quite important. The existence of a special tax to ease tariffs will provide a positive stimulus for IoT players in Indonesia.

He also added, “The expected regulation, is when the foreign IoT technology entering Indonesia, there should be a partnership or collaboration in any way possible with local companies or startups. Therefore, there is an obligation for transfer knowledge.”

A similar thought from eFishery’s Chief of Product, Krisna Aditya. He said to support local startups to develop is by regulating foreign IoT companies at least to give space for locals to penetrate the current market.

“Regulations such as TKDN that favor Indonesian startups are indeed favorable. Then, the tax incentives or the easy importing for basic parts needed to develop IoT products are also very important. Almost all required parts to develop IoT are still imported, therefore, when the import process is facilitated with the aim of developing startups in Indonesia, it will open up new jobs in Indonesia,” he added.

Perangkat HabibiGrow dari Habibi Garden — HabibiGrow by Habibi Garden

DycodeX’ Co-founder & CEO, Andri Yadi agreed on this subject. He said that reducing import tariffs could be a positive impact on the IoT industry. However, to regulate is not easy. It takes time and effort to record a lot of devices wheter to reduce the cost.

Another regulation that is also expected is TKDN for devices entering Indonesia. Although the discussion is still ongoing in the internal association, this rule is considered to be able to boost the growth of the IoT industry in Indonesia.

Andri said, this TKDN regulation must be prepared in advance, especially the readiness of the local players. Avoid regulations backfire at all cost. When it is expected to grow, instead, it only hinders the developing industry due to unpreparedness.

Stories of local players

The Indonesian IoT Association or ASIoTI is quite optimistic about the opportunities of the IoT industry in Indonesia. Even at the end of 2019 they targeted 200 million sensors in 2020. This target is somewhat missed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but its development still provides potential and opportunities.

In addition to industrial automation, a number of solutions in the agriculture and fisheries sector can be optimized. Habibi Garden and SmarTernak (one of the solutions from DycodeX) have a solution that is almost similar, but applicable into two different things. HabibiGarden for the agriculture sector and Smarternak for the livestock sector.

Habibi Garden claimed to have collaborated with West Java Digital Service, especially for the agricultural sector. They help farmers to optimize the way they work through the IoT tool. Both in open land or in the greenhouse.

Penerapan perangkat SmarTernak — Implementation of SmarTernak

Some devices developed by Habibi Garden include tools to monitor the condition of the growing media, devices that can be controlled remotely to provide fertilizer, water, pesticides, and the like, as well as several other devices.

“We produce 200 sensors that are packaged for 20 farmer groups in West Java. The tools we use include automatic watering systems, cooling systems for greenhouses, weather monitoring systems and planting media. With this tool farmers can know exactly when to do watering and fertilization, with this farmers can get the efficiency of production costs and labor,” Irsan said.

SmarTernak also comes with similar solution. Focused on West Java, Smarternak has begun to focus on monetization and implementation.

“In terms of devices, some are installed in cows, some are installed in cages. The ones installed in cages are temperature sensors and water supply. If used in cattle for tracking activity, how long he eats, how long he sleeps,” said Andri .

There is also eFishery, a startup whose business unit is developing an IoT device to facilitate fish and shrimp feeding. This startup has developed tens of thousands of devices installed in fish/shrimp ponds in 120 cities/regencies throughout Indonesia.

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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian

Wellness Startups Offer Various Online Activities Amidst the Current Pandemic

The Covid-19 outbreak has refrained people from their routine, forced them to stay at home, even distance themselves from one another. Even though, stay at home doesn’t mean you have nothing to do. We can still be well and healthy at home with nutritious food and in-house sport.

Here are some list of wellness startups available to use for those who intend to keep up the wellness and healthiness at home.

Doogether

Since its debut, the startup led by Fauzan Gani has been focused on wellness platform by providing booking access to sport spaces or classes. Amidst the pandemic, Doogether offers Doolive service.

Accessible via dirumahaja.doogether.id page, they offer online wellness activity through live video streaming. It’s kind of adjustment for those who intend to keep their training classes going but forced to stay home at this time of the pandemic.

In addition, Doogether also provides Doofood, a service that allows its users to order healthy food through app. Therefore, Doogether can still provide a solution for those who want to consume healthy food along with virtual exercise sessions.

FitCo

An app under development of The Fit Company, FitCo, can be an option to keep your body healthy at home. The Fit Company, led by Jeff Budiman, has been always committed to providing a healthy and active lifestyle for people.

In the whole ecosystem, FitCo offers some services for its users to stay healthy and active. In terms of exercise, they offer direct booking feature with guidance for exercise sessions. Moreover, there are some supporting features, such as VirtuFit from 20 Fit and Workout From Home.

Various healthyfood and sport equipment online — Healthy food variants and sports equipment online

In addition, FitCo ecosystem is getting better furnished with FitShop that sells various kinds of sports equipment, healthy food, and other basic needs of healthy lifestyle. Last 2019, FitCo has acquired Slim Gourmet to provide FitGourmet, healthy food catering. Thus, FitCo has become a platform with the most complete services for healthy and active lifestyle in Indonesia.

There are also other startups offering similar services to keep up the healthy lifestyle during the stay at home period, such as Lemonilo, the e-commerce that sells healthy food, also healthy food catering, Gorry Gourmet and YummyCorp.

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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian

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The SME Accounting App Developer BukuWarung Announces Seed Funding Led by East Ventures

BukuWarung, a SaaS accounting startup for SMEs, announced seed funding led by East Ventures. The fresh money will be channeled to tighten the company’s position and recruiting talents of engineers, product, design, growth and partnership.

Also participated other investors such as AC Ventures (merger of Agaeti Ventures and Convergence Ventures), Golden Gate Ventures, Tanglin Venture Partners, and Michael Sampoerna. It is also mentioned some angel investors from Grab, Gojek, Flipkart, Paypal, Xendit, Rapyd, Alterra, ZenRooms, and others.

In the exact event, Lunasbos‘ founder, Adjie Purbojati joined BukaWarung as the founding team to help accelerate the company’s growth. Lunasbos is a two-way accounting, claimed as one of the leading players in the accounting service industry for Indonesian SMEs.

BukuWarung was founded by Abhinay Peddisetty and Chinmay Chauhan in late 2019 when both are still working at Carousell. Previously, they also had experienced working in Grab, Belong and Near. They’re actively develop services for payment and financial for the last 15 years for SMEs in Indonesia and Southeast Asia.

BukuWarung is an app to facilitate SME players to record transactions digitally. It also provides feature to record debt and return.

The shop owner can record the transactions of customers who owe money. Nevertheless, the business owner owes the supplier or another party. Billing notifications are available via SMS or WhatsApp which will be sent as a bill.

There is also feature for income and outcome in order to record the cash flow and the report is accessible per day, week, or month.

In today’s official release (4/7), BukuWarung’s Co-founder, Abhinay Peddisetty said, “In the early days, BukuWarung has its own moment of strong growth. However, the number has not reached 1% of 60 million shop owners in Indonesia, which mostly depends on traditional accounting or never had any.”

“[..] Our mission is to support the shop owners with technology, therefore, they can manage their business in an efficient way. Kasbon (debt/return) includes in 80% of their business. This is the main reason we focus on digital accounting,” he added.

BukaWarung’s Co-founder, Chinmay Chauhan continued, “From our experience of developing products for driver and seller in Grab and Carousell, we are aware of the most useful product for SME is a simple product. The feature we offer has increased engagement for 500% in the last two months.”

Chinmay said that in the near future the company will release a feature for stall owners to send bills to their customers in the form of a payment link. The link is connected with a digital wallet and other methods.

“This is our effort to help them reduce direct contact amid the threat of the Covid-19 outbreak.”

East Ventures’ Co-Founder and Managing Partner Willson Cuaca said, they’re interested in BukuWarung because of their focus and quick execution. As a result, the traction and engagement growth is quite rapid, making them one of the main players in the market.

“We are sure the next wave of innovative startups will emerge from efforts to encourage digitization in the SME segment. Therefore, we don’t waste much time to decide to become a BukuWarung partner,” explained Willson.

It also mentioned that the following months after its launching, BukuWarung already used by 250 thousand stalls in 500 cities and regencies in Indonesia. The majority of them are located in second and third-tier cities.

It is said, through the application, users receive return debt payments three times faster and feel the impact of payment reminder features on their business cash flow. In addition, users can save time and expenses by an average of Rp110 thousand, which is usually spent on manual bookkeeping with ledgers, stationery, and calculators.

The new BukuWarung application is available for Android users. The iOS version is being considered for its availability.

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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian

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[Weekly Updates] Bukalapak’s New Logo; $17 Million Funding for TaniHub; and More

Bukalapak has announced the usage of new logo following the succession of its CEO. In the highlight last week were series of funding announcement by TaniHub, Kargo, and ProSpark. Lastly, East Ventures and its portfolio initiate crowdfunding scheme to help financing Covid-19 test kit.

Bukalapak Introduces The New Logo

Bukalapak is officially launched a new logo. The new logo introduced only three months after the reins of company leadership were transferred from the Co-Founder to a professional. With this new face, Bukalapak intends to benefit more people with the features and technologies in their ecosystem.

Bukalapak team told DailySocial that the rebranding initiative had long been prepared. At the age of 10, Bukalapak remains the same, trying to help raise the standard of living of its users in the whole ecosystem.

Bukalapak said the new company’s logo contains 4 meanings: Excitement, Fun, Strength, and Bukalapak. The meaning of the new Bukalapak logo illustrates that Bukalapak is ready to become a platform with answers to all the needs of its users to get or sell goods.

TaniHub Secures 285 Billion Rupiah Worth of Series A+ Funding

TaniHub Group announced to secure series A+ funding worth of US$17 million or around 285 billion Rupiah. This is the follow on round of the series A last May 2019.

The latest round was led by Openspace Ventures and Intudo Ventures. Also involved in this round, UOB Venture Management, Vertec Ventures, BRI Ventures, Tenaya Capital and Golden Gate Ventures. In total, TaniHub has obtained Rp462 billion funding since 2016.

The additional funding will be allocated to tighten business position by expanding services, both for farmers and customers. They will also focus to improve operational, such as the implementation of automation in processing and packaging centers.

Coca-Cola’s CVC, “Amatil X” Pours Its First Investment to Kargo Technology

Following its official launch in early 2019, Coca-Cola Amatil Indonesia (Amatil Indonesia), through the Amatil X corporate venture capital (CVC) initiative, has established strategic partnerships with some startups in Indonesia.

The latest collaboration is with Kargo Technologies, it is said to help them expand the business strategy and logistics digitization process in Indonesia.

Kargo Technologies is a logistics marketplace that connects companies and truck service providers. In the middle of last year, they obtained funding of $7.6 million (more than 107 billion Rupiah) led by Sequoia India and the 10100 Fund – the latter one was founded by Uber Co-Founder Travis Kalanick.

ProSpark Provides Edtech Solution in B2B Segment

Founded in 2018, ProSpark offers a Learning Management System (LMS) that allows companies to train, certify, transfer knowledge, and collaborate. In particular targeting B2B segment by providing a learning management system to improve staff comprehension.

In order to accelerate business development, ProSpark has secured pre-seed funding led by Agaeti Ventures. Prasetia Dwidharma and an angel investor, Adi Adisaputro, also participated in this round.

ProSpark plans to use the funds to expand its commercial footprint and strengthen its position in the market. The company is also working on plans for regional expansion across SE Asia in the future.

East Ventures and Its Portfolios Initiated “Indonesia Pasti Bisa” Project

Amidst the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak throughout Indonesia, East Ventures along with some of its portfolios have collaborated to make a contribution. They’ve launched the crowdfunding platform named Indonesia Pasti Bisa to collect funds and channel it for Nusantics to produce its own Covid-19 test kit.

There are three of East Ventures’ portfolios took part in this initiative. First and the main player is Nusantics. The deep-tech genomic startup has just announced the funding last week and currently developing a test kit for Covid-19. The project is part of Nusantics’ job as a member of the Research Force and Technology Innovation Task Force for Handling Covid-19 (TFRIC19) formed by BPPT.

The company to produce 100 sets of qPCR as prototypes and massive production for 100,000 test kits. In time, Nusantics will be launching the whole-genome sequencing to map the virus causing Covid-19 in Indonesia. The genomic mapping of various kinds of the virus becomes important due to the virus mostly mutating to different kind of form based on the environment.

Pintu is Confident to Encourage User Interest into Crypto Assets

The lack of Indonesian public knowledge on blockchain and cryptocurrency concept becomes the main reason for PT Pintu Kemana Saja to launch Pintu. It’s a platform designed specifically for crypto assets transactions through the smartphone in a practical and efficient way, expected to acquire more users.

Pintu’s Marketing Manager, Kyrie Canille told DailySocial that the current platforms are using a complicated user interface and many technical terms not available for daily use. As the challenge arose, Pintu intends to solve the problem.

“Pintu intends to solve this problem by providing the easiest way (such as a portal) to access crypto and blockchain technology with UI / UX that is easy to make the experience seamless and supported with a high level of security.”

One thing that distinguishes Pintu from its competitors is a feature that focuses on mobile applications. Pintu provides an infrastructure that allows users to trade, send and store crypto assets via smartphones.

The simple and practical user interface allows users to purchase and sell their crypto assets instantly, easily and without obstacles. For the user convenience, transactions of sending crypto assets between fellow Pintu users will not be charged.

In addition, Pintu also supports unlimited conversion between rupiah and stablecoin which is called Rupiah Token (IDRT). By using IDRT, it is easy for users to send rupiah on blockchain forms such as Ethereum and Binance Chain. Users can also use IDRT to trade on global crypto exchanges such as Liquid.com, Binance, Uniswap, and others.

“Pintu is basically a crypto wallet and crypto exchange that allows users to safely store and carry out transactions. Pintu also supports BTC, ETH, USDT, BNB, and IDRT. All crypto prices displayed on Pintu are final prices, there are no additional costs associated with buying or selling crypto in the Doors application,” Kyrie said.

In Indonesia, there are several well-known platforms for buying and selling crypto assets. Two of them are Indodax and Tokocrypto. Indodax as one of the pioneers of related platforms has acquired around 1.8 million users with dozens of types of traded crypto assets.

Pintu launches amid the fading trend of the crypto market. According to the presentation of Indodax’s CEO Oscar Darmawan, there was a significant decline throughout 2019, especially compared to the peak popularity in 2017. Nevertheless, the valuation is still considered to have the highest performance compared to other investment assets.

Officially registered in BAPPEBTI

Pintu has been officially registered and supervised by the Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency (BAPPEBTI). Officially launched late last March 2020, the company claims to have 100 active users. Pintu has also established partnerships with communities and media partners to the blockchain ecosystem in Indonesia.

Furthermore, the company expects to expand partnerships, starting with payment gateway providers and remittances that make it possible to add payment options on the platform.

“Our main goal is to provide everyone with reliable and easy access to an open financial system. For monetization strategies, Pintu collects small fees from rupiah and crypto withdrawals. We also focus on providing safe and easy ways for users to buy, sell, and save their crypto assets,” Kyrie added.

In 2020 the company has achieved several targets, including developing the Pintu application as a platform to introduce more massive blockchain technology to the public by offering an educational interface, so users can become more familiar with the technology.

Pintu also wants to overcome obstacles related to remittances for Indonesian workers abroad. Through the platform, the user can later buy BTC, IDRT, USDT, BNB, or ETH through crypto ATMs, Point-of-Sales (POS), or OTC crypto abroad and then can exchange it for rupiah before sending their money to families in Indonesia.

“Our target in 2020 is to become the best crypto application in Indonesia. We have secured the seed funding stages whose details we cannot disclose. We are still opening opportunities for investors who are interested in investing in our platform,” Kyrie said.

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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian

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Indonesian Agritech’s Top Three Bucket List for The First Quarter of 2020

Agritech has become one of the essential segments in the industry for its representation of Indonesian culture. Agriculture held one-third of Indonesian land and workers. Technology has a crucial role to increase productivity in this industry due to the decreasing talent for the last decade.

Otherwise, the country should import more in order to feed its citizen. In 2025, Indonesian population is predicted to increase by 11 million from the current position at 270 million people.

Quoted from CompassList research project report titled “Indonesia Agritech Report 2020” released in March, the world is currently struggling with food supply crisis due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The global food supply chain is tightening for some countries are lockdown and stop exporting.

Most businesses are getting suspended as life continues, amid efforts to curb the spread of the virus. These conditions show the importance of maintaining food security – and national agriculture.

The report shows high optimism for agritech, given the sector is relatively new in Indonesia. As Chilibeli secured series A funding in March 2020, it shows a bright future in this sector. Chilibeli has just launched in less than a year.

“More efficient and equitable agricultural practices will pave the way for sustainable agriculture in Indonesia, benefiting farmers, resources and the community. This helps create a stronger agricultural sector, which in turn will support Indonesia’s food security and economic growth,” the report stated.

Require more deep-tech innovation

CompassList listed four categories for the current operational agritech. It’s based on funding, e-commerce, education and assistance, also technology development. In structural, it shows the highest concentration of agritech startups.

UMG Idealab‘s Investment & Venture Partner, Jefry Pratama said, the act of selling agriculture commodities is the simplest and most certain way for agritech startup to gain profit. Of all the highlighted startups, they utilize the e-commerce sector or market the products offline.

To date, the deep-tech startup in this industry only works with AI, data analytics, and robotics. There is no further deep-tech (a new technology that offers significant improvement of the current issue), such as genetical manipulation.

Startups took part in this sector includes Habibi Garden, BIOPS, HARA, and JALA. Each startup has a certain tech specialization in data collecting, farmers can translate daily and take action instantly.

JALA, for example, has been using series of sensors to detect water quality in shrimp ponds, salinity, and pH rate to oxygen. The data is to be sent to the cloud-based media analytics for further diagnosed options to improve water quality.

Shrimp farmers can eventually distribute less feed for exceeding feed can impact on the final quality. It should reduce shrimp waste and loss, also increasing yields.

The lack of deep tech innovation might occurs due to various factors. Starting from the lack of available talent, campus support, research institutions, large corporations. These entities have an important role in carrying the development costs (R&D) for certain sectors. This is where most likely the first time innovation has been found.

However, these issues are not impossible to overcome, as UMG Idealab did, the incubator and CVC from the conglomerate from Myanmar UMG. They invested in PT Mitra Sejahtera Pembangunan Bangsa (MSMB), an agritech startup focused on creating sensors, drones, and mobile applications for farmers.

Uniquely, the MSMB was founded by lecturers and students from UGM. The staff consists of students, recent graduates, and lecturers from local campuses in Yogyakarta and surrounding areas.

Other factors are also reflected in supporting infrastructure such as logistics and supply chain. India is more or less the same as Indonesia, although it cannot be generalized. Both are countries with large areas with infrastructure development that are still late in the countryside.

R&D becomes essential

The existence of an R&D center for a business is important, not just for agritech. To encourage more local farmers to increase their crop yields and reduce potential losses, more high-quality seed production is needed, developing better disease diagnosis tools, and new hardware.

Startups are yet to have the resources to create their own R&D, therefore, they become obstacles to entering “deep biotech” in seed development. They will take advantage of collaboration with local universities, such as IPB and UGM. The campus is equipped with expertise and facilities to pursue cross-marriages, genetic engineering and other basic science projects.

Unfortunately, this country still lacks funds to build R&D center. In 2018, the overall R&D budget will be Rp. 25.8 trillion or 0.2% of total GDP.

This condition encourages each stakeholder to collaborate to create superior seed varieties. Many multinational companies are financially supported through collaboration with local players and the central government, as well as with their own budgets. Collaboration like this can accelerate the discovery of seed development that suits local needs and conditions, such as varieties that are more resistant to drought.

“The government can play a more active role in developing Indonesian agriculture to be more resilient. We need to fund R&D in Indonesia, “added Pamitra Wineka’s Co-Founder & President TaniGroup.

Initiatives to accelerate logistics

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates as much as 120 kg to 170 kg of food per capita is lost or wasted every year in South and Southeast Asia. This is homework for Indonesia to improve logistics and supply chain infrastructure to prevent the loss of food.

ADB statistics link 25% -45% of the results of this decay due to poor packaging, inadequate cooling systems, and long delivery times.

Here the role of government and private sector is needed to reduce post-harvest losses. You do this by building a warehouse, a packing place, a cooling place close to agricultural land and fisheries. Food delivery vehicles must also be improved through better road conditions and vehicles that can adjust the temperature.

TaniGroup created a logistics subsidiary, TaniSupply, in September 2019 to address imbalances in the supply chain. Then, 8villages worked with agricultural intermediaries to create VLOGS, gathering data on logistics providers in a platform to help farmers find logistical partners.

If small farmers from neighboring villages can agree to the same logistics provider, for example, they can increase their bargaining power by collectively asking for lower shipping rates.

Tokopedia also made a similar initiation by making a branch store, a smart warehouse that can predict which items sell best in the nearest city. All traders, even micro, can place their stock in warehouses based on predicted purchasing trends.

This model can be adopted for agricultural products because farmers and fishermen have more or less the same challenges as online traders in Tokopedia.

Simplifying modes of transportation and supply chains undoubtedly results in reduced post-harvest losses. There is a need for intensive initiatives from startups and the government to strengthen local food, allowing fresh products to be easily accessible to consumers without any middlemen who bother.

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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian