[Weekly Updates] Agaeti and Convergence Merge as AC Ventures; Investree Raises $23.5 Million; and More

Two local venture capitals, Agaeti and Convergence, has formalize their merger as AC Ventures. Meanwhile, plenty of funding news last week, including Investree raises $23.5 million Series C funding led by Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) and BRI Ventures, BukuWarung secures seed funding led by East Ventures, and Webtraces announces seed funding led by Prasetia Dwidharma.

AC Ventures is Agaeti Ventures and Convergence Ventures’ New Identity

The two local venture capitals, Agaeti Ventures and Convergence Ventures, has officially merged and took a new name as AC Ventures (ACV). Both company’s partners are joining the new entity. They are Adrian Li, Michael Soerijadji, Donald Wihardja, and Pandu Sjahrir.

AC Ventures to invest in 35 early-stage startups within the next three years. Its preferred focus are e-commerce, digital content enabled service, financial technology, and MSME enabled technology.

ACV is the first consolidated VC firm to be officially announced in Indonesia. After the first wave of investment in the past decade, some venture capitals are said to start a consolidation to raise the next round of fund.

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, a subsidiary of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), and BRI Ventures. Also participated are SBI Holdings and 9F Fintech Holding Group, both are existing investors.

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.

Webtrace Announces Seed Funding, Developing Logistics Management Platform

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.

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.

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.

BukuWarung was founded by Abhinay Peddisetty and Chinmay Chauhan in late 2019 when both are still working at Carousell.

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

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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Pengembang Aplikasi Pembukuan UKM “BukuWarung” Dapatkan Pendanaan Awal, Dipimpin East Ventures

BukuWarung, startup SaaS pembukuan untuk UKM, mengumumkan perolehan pendanaan tahap awal yang dipimpin oleh East Ventures. Dana segar akan digunakan untuk memperkuat posisi di pasar dan merekrut talenta baru di bidang engineer, produk, desain, pertumbuhan, dan kemitraan.

Turut berpartisipasi investor lainnya seperti AC Ventures (merger Agaeti Ventures dan Convergence Ventures), Golden Gate Ventures, Tanglin Venture Partners, dan Michael Sampoerna. Disebutkan juga ada beberapa angel investor yang ikut mengucurkan dananya dari Grab, Gojek, Flipkart, Paypal, Xendit, Rapyd, Alterra, ZenRooms, dan lainnya.

Pada saat yang sama, founder Lunasbos Adjie Purbojati bergabung di BukuWarung sebagai founding team untuk mengakselerasi pertumbuhan perusahaan. Lunasbos adalah aplikasi pencatatan keuangan dua arah, mengklaim dirinya sebagai salah satu pemain utama dalam industri layanan akuntansi untuk UKM di Indonesia.

BukuWarung didirikan oleh Abhinay Peddisetty dan Chinmay Chauhan pada akhir tahun 2019 saat keduanya masih bekerja di Carousell. Sebelumnya mereka berdua pernah meniti karier di Grab, Belong, dan Near. Selama 15 tahun mereka aktif mengembangkan layanan pembayaran dan finansial untuk segmen UKM di Indonesia dan Asia Tenggara.

BukuWarung adalah aplikasi yang memudahkan pengusaha UKM dalam mencatat pembukuan usahanya secara digital. Di dalamnya terdapat fitur catat utang dan piutang.

Pemilik warung dapat mencatat transaksi pelanggan yang membeli dengan cara utang. Atau, jika pemilik usaha memiliki utang terhadap penyuplai ataupun pihak lain. Tersedia notifikasi tagihan melalui SMS atau WhatsApp yang akan dikirim sebagai tagihan.

Fitur lainnya adalah pencatatan pemasukan dan pengeluaran agar arus kas tetap tercatat dan laporan pembukuan usaha yang dapat diakses per hari, minggu, atau bulanan.

Dalam keterangan resmi yang disampaikan hari ini (7/4), Co-Founder BukuWarung Abhinay Peddisetty mengatakan, “Dalam beberapa bulan pertama, BukuWarung menikmati momentum pertumbuhan yang kuat. Namun, angka itu belum mencapai 1% dari 60 juta pemilik warung di Indonesia, yang hampir seluruhnya bergantung pada metode pencatatan tradisional atau tidak melakukan pembukuan sama sekali.”

“[..] Misi kami adalah mendukung pemilik warung ini dengan teknologi sehingga mereka bisa mengelola bisnis mereka dengan efisien. Kasbon (utang/piutang) mencakup 80% dari bisnis mereka. Ini alasan kami berfokus kepada produk pembukuan digital,” sambungnya.

Co-Founder BukuWarung Chinmay Chauhan menambahkan, “Dari pengalaman membangun produk untuk pengemudi dan pedagang di Grab dan Carousell, kami memahami bahwa produk yang paling bermanfaat bagi UKM adalah produk yang simpel. Fitur-fitur yang kami tawarkan membuat engagement naik 500% dalam dua bulan terakhir.”

Chinmay menyebut dalam waktu dekat perusahaan akan merilis fitur yang bisa dimanfaatkan oleh pemilik warung untuk mengirimkan tagihan ke pelanggan mereka dalam bentuk tautan pembayaran. Tautan tersebut terhubung dengan dompet digital dan metode lainnya.

“Ini adalah upaya kami untuk membantu mereka mengurangi kontak langsung di tengah ancaman wabah Covid-19.”

Co-Founder dan Managing Partner East Ventures Willson Cuaca menjelaskan, pihaknya tertarik dengan BukuWarung karena mereka mengeksekusi dengan cepat dan fokus. Alhasil, pertumbuhan traction dan engagement yang dihasilkan cukup pesat, menjadikan mereka sebagai salah satu pemain utama.

“Kami yakin gelombang startup inovatif berikutnya akan muncul dari upaya mendorong digitalisasi di segmen UKM. Oleh karena itu, kami tidak hanya membutuhkan waktu yang singkat untuk memutuskan menjadi mitra BukuWarung,” terang Willson.

Disebutkan dalam beberapa bulan pasca diluncurkan, BukuWarung telah digunakan oleh 250 ribu warung di 500 kota dan kabupaten di Indonesia. Mayoritas mereka berlokasi di kota lapis dua dan tiga.

Diklaim, lewat aplikasi, pengguna menerima pembayaran piutang tiga kali lebih cepat dan merasakan dampak dari fitur pengingat pembayaran terhadap arus kas bisnis mereka. Di samping itu, pengguna bisa menghemat waktu dan pengeluaran dengan rata-rata Rp110 ribu, yang biasanya dihabiskan untuk pembukuan manual dengan buku besar, alat tulis, dan kalkulator.

Aplikasi BukuWarung baru tersedia untuk pengguna Android. Versi iOS sedang dipertimbangkan untuk ketersediaannya.

Application Information Will Show Up Here