Tag: Verihubs Williem

Verihubs Secures 39.9 Billion Rupiah Seed Funding, to Release Credit Scoring Service

The E-KYC service startup Verihubs announced $2.8 million (approximately 39.9 billion Rupiah) seed funding round led by Insignia Venture Partners with participation from Central Capital Ventures (CCV) and Armand Ventures. The company plans to expand into regional markets, as well as develop new products, one of which is credit scoring.

Participated also in this round a series of local startup angel investors, including Budi Handoko (Shipper’s Co-Founder), Jefriyanto and Ricky Winata (Payfazz’ Co-Founder), Rohit Mulani (Gotrade’s Co-Founder), Chinmay Chauhan (Bukuwarung’s Co-Founder), and Pramodh Rai (Modalku’s ex-Chief Product Officer).

Previously, in the 2019’s pre-seed, Payfazz’ Co-founder, Hendra Kwik and Xfers’ Co-founder, Tianwei Liu participated in this stage along with Indigo Creative Nation.

Quoting from TechCrunch, a series of angel investors were previously Verihubs’ users. Together with Payfazz, Verihubs opens the opportunity for customers to deposit money with local agents to use for online payments, and BukuWarung, to access transaction data.

The two examples above are Verihubs solutions for the unbanked segment. Meanwhile, the company also serves the segment of users who already have a bank account. The CCV entrance as Verihubs’ investor ranks opens the possibility of implementing e-KYC verification, especially for users with bank accounts, as they can partner with BCA to access customer data.

Currently, 46 companies have used Verihubs’ service, most of which are in the financial sector. The number of users is targeted to be doubled to 100 companies, because Verihubs technology can also be used for e-commerce companies, marketplace rentals, and hospitality. One of Verihubs users came from hospitality, they used the platform to simplify the room check-in process.

Verihubs’ Co-founder & CEO, Rick Firnando said, before Verihubs, many of its clients still doing manual customer verification, which takes between one to two weeks. Verihubs serves as an all-in-one verification solution to only five seconds, using AI-based identity authentication technology and APIs that enable companies to continuously verify returning customers via SMS, WhatsApp or speed dial.

“Because developer has difficulty to do integration with multiple vendors, Verihubs allows clients to do KYC, offer phone number verification using WhatsApp or SMS, and also verify customer financial data,” Rick said.

When users log into the app using Verihubs for the first time, they will be asked to take a selfie and then upload a photo of their government-issued photo ID. Verihubs AI technology compares the two photos to see if they match, and cross-references the ID with a telecom operator’s credit score and Indonesian government database, including criminal records.

The company applies a transaction fee-based business model, the client will pay according to the number of successful verifications.

Rick continued, the company is building a credit scoring system based on transaction data and account balances. In addition, it plans to expand into regional markets, such as Vietnam and the Philippines.

“For the ID verification system, we found that Verihubs already has a product-market fit in Indonesia, however, we want to expand it to new products. We consolidate financial data from multiple sources, not only for banks, but also for the unbanked population. And we are also exploring potential expansion into new markets, such as the Philippines and Vietnam.”

This startup has just graduated from summer batch of Y Combinator 2021, this funding is claimed to be YC’s first AI startup from Indonesia.

Verihubs was founded in 2019 in Jakarta by Rick Firnando with more than 9 years of experience in the B2B industry, and Williem, an AI researcher with a PhD in computer vision from Inha University, South Korea.

Market competition

In Indonesia, there are already several services targeting similar segments such as ASLI RI. In collaboration with LoginID, a Silicon Valley company, ASLI RI launched AsliLoginID, a Biometric-Authentication as a Service (BaaS) platform with FIDO2 certification. The certification is one of today’s most stringent security standards, internationally recognized and is compatible with various types of computing device operating systems.

In addition, one of the service development startups based on artificial intelligence Nodeflux also has a business line that focuses on developing solutions to simplify the eKYC process, Identifai. Nodeflux alone is one of the partners of the Directorate General of Civil Registration as a joint platform provider to provide the best performance in data utilization without security risks.

Regarding the SaaS industry landscape that specifically develops API-based verification solutions, Rick also said that in terms of education, the target market for this service already has a good understanding of the importance of verification solutions. “As the fintech industry and other digital-based companies grow, this solution will be increasingly needed and developed,” he said.

According to ReportLinker, the global software as a service (SaaS) market is expected to grow from $225.6 billion in 2020 to $272.49 billion in 2021 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20.8%. The market is expected to reach $436.9 billion by 2025 at a CAGR of 12.5%.

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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian

Manajemen Tim dan Penyesuaian Fokus Bisnis Jadi Agenda Penting Startup di Tengah Pandemi

Meskipun di awal bulan sempat mengalami beberapa tantangan, namun saat ini ketika pandemi sudah memasuki bulan kelima banyak startup yang bisa menyesuaikan keadaan dalam situasi bekerja di rumah. Istilah new normal bukan lagi bersifat sementara, namun diprediksi menjadi kondisi yang berlanjut.

Dalam sesi webinar yang digelar oleh program akselerator GK-Plug and Play, beberapa penggiat startup yang terdiri dari CEO AI Sensum Vivek Thomas, CEO Verihubs Williem, dan Head of Product Tiket Rosabella Sarudin berbagi pengalaman dan update menarik tentang tempat mereka bekerja saat pandemi berlangsung.

Manajemen tim dan penggunaan tools yang tepat

Sebagai startup yang menghadirkan teknologi Software as a Service (SaaS), Williem melihat tidak menemui kendala yang berarti saat pandemi terkait dengan manajemen dan mengelola time management team. Dalam hal ini Verihubs yang didominasi oleh tenaga engineer, memberikan kebebasan kepada anggota tim untuk bekerja di rumah, selama tugas yang dibebankan bisa diselesaikan.

“Kami menggunakan tools yang relevan, seperti Airtable. Dengan demikian semua tugas yang diberikan kepada engineer bisa di-monitor. Selama ini kami juga telah memberikan kesempatan remote working kepada pegawai, sehingga mudahkan transisi working from home,” kata Williem.

Hal serupa juga diterapkan oleh Vivek dalam hal mengelola tim selama bekerja di rumah. Meskipun tidak meninggalkan KPI yang telah ditetapkan kepada masing-masing pegawai, namun Vivek melihat adanya peluang transisi jabatan kepada beberapa pegawai selama pandemi berlangsung.

“Fokus kami tentunya kepada tim sales dan business development, namun di saat yang sama kami juga melihat ada beberapa tugas yang kemudian dialihkan dan diberikan kepada pegawai lainnya,” kata Vivek.

Pandemi juga diklaim menambah produktivitas pegawai, tantangan seperti transportasi hingga pengeluaran yang biasanya banyakan dihabiskan oleh pegawai di kantor, kini bisa dipangkas saat kegiatan bekerja di rumah diberlakukan.

“Kita sendiri belum bisa memutuskan kapan waktu yang tepat untuk kembali ke kantor. Karena setelah dilihat selama 5 bulan terakhir, produktivitas para pegawai tetap positif bahkan cenderung meningkat produktivitasnya,” Vivek.

Saat pandemi juga menjadi waktu yang tepat untuk mencoba atau meluncurkan layanan atau produk yang baru. Ketika semua layanan hingga tools mulai shifting ke digital, semua produk yang terkait dengan teknologi hingga touchless dan contactless produk, diprediksi bakal menjadi masa depan saat pandemi bahkan ketika pandemi berakhir.

“Salah satu yang telah kami luncurkan dan mendapat respons positif adalah ketika bulan Mei lalu kami meluncurkan Passwordku. Produk yang memudahkan pengguna untuk mengelola password mereka untuk semua. Saat pandemi peluncuran tersebut memvalidasi model bisnis kami saat ini dan ke depannya,” kata Williem.

Mengubah fokus dan target

Sebagai layanan OTA yang selama ini sudah meraih kesuksesan, Tiket mengakui selama pandemi berlangsung mengalami penurunan dari sisi penjualan. Ditutupnya penerbangan, penginapan hingga tempat hiburan, telah membatasi bisnis mereka untuk tumbuh selama 5 bulan terakhir.

Untuk mengakali tantangan tersebut, Tiket kemudian mulai memfokuskan kepada experience. Mulai dari menggelar acara musik live hingga sesi tanya jawab dengan artis idola, diklaim bisa membantu perusahaan untuk terus tumbuh selama pandemi.

Saat ini ketika aturan PSBB sudah mulai dilonggarkan di beberapa tempat wisata hingga destinasi favorit seperti Bali, Tiket juga berupaya untuk menggenjot jumlah penjualan tiket penerbangan, penginapan dan atraksi. Salah satunya adalah dengan cara melancarkan kampanye Tiket Clean. Yaitu kampanye yang berisikan himbauan dan aksi positif oleh Tiket kepada perhotelan yang tetap menjaga kebersihan dan mematuhi protokol kesehatan selama pandemi.

“Pada akhirnya hotel membutuhkan uang tunai, dengan memberikan promo berupa diskon hingga penawaran menarik yang bisa dimanfaatkan oleh pelanggan yang tertarik untuk melakukan pemesanan hotel saat ini atau tahun depan,” kata Rosabella.

Meskipun sarat dengan tantangan, namun dengan strategi ini diharapkan bisa memancing kembali minat masyarakat untuk kembali melakukan pemesanan dan menginap di hotel yang sudah terjamin kebersihannya.