NFC Indonesia, a subsidiary of digital distribution company M Cash Integrasi, has formed a joint venture with SiCepat, an Indonesian logistics company, to enter the Electric Vehicle (EV) sector. 

The joint venture will be called Energi Selalu Baru (ESB) and will focus on the distribution of electric motorcycles, battery exchange, and its supporting services. 

A statement from the company said that M Cash subsidiaries Digital Mediatama Maxima and Telefast Indonesia will take minority stakes in ESB by providing commercial, infrastructural, and ecosystem support.

Alternatively, ESB will take a majority stake in EV manufacturing company, PT Volta Indonesia Semesta. 

 Volta will be the key production house of the electric motorcycles for ESB while NFCX will provide and administer the digital platform for the vehicle registration and management, payments, and rewards.

As of now, its electric motorcycles are already in beta-testing with government agencies and a few private enterprises.

The current testing phase remains on track with the electric motorcycles and their accompanying support facilities to be expected to open for mass-market access in the late second half of 2021.

Also Read: Grab, Hyundai launches their first electric vehicle service in Indonesia

The range of electric motorcycles will also come with several pricing models for battery exchanges that will meet the needs of frequent, non-frequent, long-distance, and short-distance riders.

This marks the group’s first foray into Indonesia’s promising EV market that is slated to grow in tandem with the government’s push to develop a circular EV industry.

“We expect that as battery technology improves with time, going green in the transportation/logistics industry will become increasingly affordable and economical. For phase 1, we will also be adding up to 5,000 electric motorcycles to our fleets. We will continue to add more electric motorcycles to support the government’s move for greener Indonesia,” Kim Hai, CEO of SiCepat, said.

The President Joko Widodo administration is targeting to have a population of 374,000 electric cars, 11.8 million electric motorcycles, 6 thousand public EV charging stations by 2025.

These ambitious targets for EV production have advantages and will aid in reducing oil imports and will support a promising battery manufacturing industry.

Both of which are expected to help improve Indonesia’s socio-economic development.

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Grab and GoTo IPOs could spawn more SEA startups, says 500 Startups; According to 500’s Vishal Harnal, the public listings of Grab and GoTo would allow for more investment in smaller businesses; The comments counter speculation that the newly-capitalised tech giants may squash competition.

US-based Nityo makes US$100M strategic investment in banking-as-a-service platform MatchMove, becomes its largest shareholder; MatchMove empowers its corporate clients to offer own-brand, secure and compliant digital payments, remittance, loans, insurance, and investments to their own customers; Nityo is an IT services firm with a presence in 38 countries and serves over 3K enterprise clients.

Book-keeping app BukuWarung rakes in US$60M to build an OS for Indonesia’s 60M MSMEs; Investors include Valar Ventures (lead), Wise, N26, and Goodwater Capital; BukuWarung recently launched a Shopify-equivalent, called Tokoko; Over the last 6 months, BukuWarung claims to have recorded over US$15B worth of transactions and US$500M in payments.

Alodokter raises fresh capital, claims 30M MAUs and 43K doctors on its telemedicine platform; Investors are MDI Ventures and Samsung Ventures; Alodokter provides an end-to-end digital solution to patients including telemedicine, doctor booking, medical content, and health insurance services.

Filipino live-streaming app Kumu closes Series B; Investors include SIG, Openspace Ventures, PH Conglomerates, and Endeavor Catalyst; The firm claims ~11.2M registered users around the world watch live streams up to 60M times per month, with over 100K active streamers commanding about one hour of average daily usage.

Indonesia’s Qlue banks Series B financing to scale its smart city solutions to new markets in Asia; Investors are KDDI Open Innovation Fund, TMI, and ASLI RI; Qlue’s smart city platform enables one-stop centralised control of the detection, analysis, and solution of urban problems through AI and IoT.

Logistics firm SiCepat taps EV space in a JV with NFC Indonesia, buys EV maker Volta; The newly formed EV company ESB will focus on the distribution of EVs, batter exchange and supporting services; NFC is a subsidiary of listed digital firm M Cash Integrasi.

Singapore’s e-bond trading startup BondEvalue raises US$6M Series A, forms JV in Mexico; Investors include MassMutual Ventures SEA, Citigroup, Potato Productions, and Octava; The startup’s BondbloX allows investors to buy and sell bonds in denominations of US$1,000 instead of the usual US$200,000, and through a public exchange.

Malaysian digital healthcare startup Naluri secures US$5M Series A; Investors include Integra Partners (lead), Duopharma Biotech, M Venture Partners, and Sumitomo Corporation; Naluri offers human-led and AI-augmented digital health coaching that aims to transform the lives of people who are at risk of, or managing, chronic and mental health conditions.

Indonesia’s financial wellness platform wagely bags US$5.6M; Investors include Integra Partners (led), ADB Ventures, GFC, 1982 Ventures; wagely’s earned wage access platform reduces financial stress for millions of low- and middle-income workers, who struggle with unexpected financial expenses between pay cheques.

Thailand’s automobile workshops digitalisation startup Autopair raises funding; Summit Auto Body Industry led the round; Autopair will use the capital to digitalise 1,000 independent automotive workshops; It also plans to expand into markets like Indonesia and Malaysia.

MooVita raises ‘multi-million dollars’ Series A to bring driverless cars to Singapore’s public roads; Investors are Yinson Green Technologies and SMRT Ventures; MooVita is developing a solution that could transform various vehicle types into autonomous ones for multitudinous driving conditions and applications.

Philippines files criminal complaint against scam-hit payment firm Wirecard’ ex-COO; Wirecard collapsed last June, owing creditors almost US$4B, accused by its auditor of a sophisticated global fraud; Former COO Jan Marsalek is accused of violating banking, cybercrime and e-commerce laws.

Korean VC STIC Ventures invests in Vietnamese men’s wear e-commerce brand Coolmate; Hanoi-based Coolmate claims to have clocked revenues of US$1.7M in 2020, at a growth rate of 15-20% per month; It previously raised funding from 500 Startups.

Plant-based egg startup Float Foods raises US$1.7M seed funding; Lead investors are Insignia Ventures and DSG Consumer Partners; Float Foods aims to optimise its plant-based whole egg substitute OnlyEg with nutritional enhancements and longer shelf life track for commercialisation in Singapore by 2022.

Grab, BRI Ventures team up to launch accelerator for startups in Indonesia; The Grab Ventures Velocity Batch 4 x Sembrani Wira will identify and develop post-seed startups in the country, whose products and services focus on catering to merchants and micro-entrepreneurs.

What entrepreneurs can learn from Naomi Osaka’s withdrawal from the French Open; Mental health problems have been on the rise and those who work in fast-paced, high-stress environments such as startups can be at risk; Osaka’s withdrawal from the French Open may reveal some surprising lessons that startup entrepreneurs can learn.

How early-stage startups can build a thought leadership strategy; The major thrust of your thought leadership should always be market education, especially in Asia where most consumer and enterprise tech industries are still relatively new.

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Photo by Chris Sabor on Unsplash

 

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US-based tech company Nityo Infotech has invested US$100 million in Singapore-based embedded finance company MatchMove Pay in return for a significant equity stake.

With this investment, Nityo will become the largest shareholder in MatchMove.

Together, the two companies aim to empower clients to embed own-brand digital financial services in their own platforms and apps.

As per a press note, these fintech-powered platforms will enable MNCs, SMEs, families, and individuals to “instantly” access intuitive digital banking products.

Also Read: How fintech startups can fast forward their growth

MatchMove founder and CEO Shailesh Naik said: “Nityo brings us everything we need to grow: executive experience in growing and expanding a global tech company, thought leadership, growth capital, large and deep talent pools around the world, and existing relationships with many leading organisations.”

“This will immediately give us presence in 38 countries, combined with a massive ability to execute and deliver on the rising global demand for digital payments and embedded finance,” he added.

Nityo founder and CEO Naveen Kumar stated: “We are valuing the company (MatchMove) at US$500 million pre-money and US$600 million post money. With this investment and Nityo’s global strength, we are certainly looking to build a decacorn in the future, as we believe MatchMove is the most qualified soonicorn in the fintech space in Southeast Asia.”

MatchMove is a banking-as-a-service platform. It empowers its corporate clients to offer own-brand, secure and compliant digital payments, remittance, loans, insurance, and investments to their own customers (SMEs, families, and individuals).

Besides in Singapore, MatchMove has presence in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

MatchMove plans to launch programmes in Hong Kong, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Thailand by the end of 2021.

Prior to Nityo’s investment, MatchMove has secured over US$83 million via multiple rounds from investors, including NTT Venture Capital and Iconic World, as per the data compiled by Crunchbase.

In September 2019, MatchMove acquired a strategic equity stake in Singapore’s P2P lender MoolahSense for an undisclosed amount.

Also Read: Singapura Finance is the latest to join digital license race, partnering digital payment startup MatchMove

Established in 2006, Nityo offers services including infrastructure management services, outsourcing, system integration, application software development, IT consulting, IT security consulting, cloud computing, data science, big data analytics, industry specific products implementation & support, and quality assurance & training.

Nityo has operations in 38 countries and serves over 3,000 enterprise clients today.

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Image Credit: MatchMove

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Osome, a Singapore-based startup that has developed an accounting and corporate compliance app for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), has secured US$16 million in a Series A funding.

Investors are Target Global (Berlin), AltaIR Capital, Phystech Ventures, and S16VC, besides Peng T. Ong, Managing Partner of Monk’s Hill Ventures.

The fresh capital will be used for international expansion and to fuel product integrations.

Also Read: What any founder needs to know about the art of accounting

This round comes about eight months after the startup received US$3 million from XA Network and AltaIR Capital.

Osome leverages Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning techniques, combined with the experience of human experts, to solve the problem of time-consuming administrative tasks, such as payroll and secretarial work. This way, it aims to disrupt the fragmented accounting and corporate services industry.

Osome’s core offering is online accounting services for SMEs, especially those involved in e-commerce. The team plans to dive deeper in the e-commerce industry, launching more specific products and apps in the near future.

The company also helps with business set up and provides corporate secretary services. It checks compliance, tracks deadlines, files documents, and answers questions in a chat at any time of the day or week.

Also Read: Fintech startup Osome snags US$3M funding led by Target Global, preparing Hong Kong’s, UK’s expansion

The platform categorises, tags, and stores any documents you send to them, and then creates management reports, tax returns and does all necessary filing on time.

The firm claims it saw more than 100 per cent YoY revenue growth and US$9.5 million ARR with over 6,000 happy customers in Singapore, Hong Kong and the UK.

Currently Osome has five offices in Singapore, the UK, Hong Kong and other countries with over 200 employees.

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Image Credit: Osome

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Home to unicorn companies such as Gojek, Tokopedia, and Bukalapak, Indonesia is a promising launchpad for startups. But what makes the country so appealing to entrepreneurs?

According to Herman Widjaja, CTO of Tokopedia, “Indonesia is the country with the highest transaction value in Southeast Asia. The digital economy in the region also continues to grow in double digits, with e-commerce and online media sectors as the largest contributors. This growing potential for the digital economy acts as a catalyst for the booming startup scene.”

This year, we introduced the e27 Luminaries initiative as a way to celebrate the unsung heroes of the Southeast Asian tech startup ecosystem. We reached out to selected companies to nominate individuals that they felt have made a significant contribution to their success throughout the pandemic.

Far from being a one-hit-wonder, Indonesia almost dominated the e27 Luminaries list with a total of 14 startups. This proves that the local startup ecosystem is filled with players that are resilient enough to face the challenges of a pandemic.

Here are the companies that have made it to the list:

Finantier

A fintech startup that uses Open Finance API platform to provide infrastructure and data products with financial institutions to create “seamless and personalised” experiences for consumers, who can benefit from their data. The startup is currently still in its beta phase and is also a part of  Y Combinator’s Winter 2021 startup batch.

One being asked how Oloan rode out the challenges, he said, “I emphasized to the team the importance of communicating, especially when working remotely. I also introduced online collaboration tools to better track and manage work processes. This helped increase efficiency while reducing miscommunication. At the end of the day, it’s a matter of adapting and the team did well to roll with the changes,”.

Luminary: Victor Oloan

Role: Senior Engineering Manager

His impact: Building the platform from scratch amid a pandemic

Also Read: Despite the pandemic, these e27 Luminaries successfully spread their wings into new markets

GajiGesa

A financial wellness platform that aims to improve the long-term financial health of employees and companies by providing them with financial education, and other financial management tools.

Saragih said that putting the mission first and doing honest communication to the team about the intentions, and showing vulnerability was a crucial part of passing through the storm because “it’s the fears and anxieties that we all share, which draw us closer”.

Luminary: Ade Yuanda Saragih

Role: Country Head for Indonesia

His impact: Leading the company’s operation in Indonesia throughout the challenges put forth by COVID-19.

Gojek

A super app that was initially started as a motorcycle ride-hailing company but has since expanded to different verticals, like digital payments, food delivery, logistics, and many other on-demand services. It has recently announced its merger with fellow Indonesian unicorn Tokopedia.

Luminary: Severan Rault

Role: CTO (Chief Technology Officer)

His impact: Enhancing the platform and maintaining strong leadership

GudangAda

A B2B e-commerce platform for FMCG wholesalers, manufacturers, and retail businesses. Through its platform, traders can connect to meet and transact online with wholesalers and mom-pop retailers of all sizes.

Luminary: Andre Widjaja

Role: Chief of Business Development

His impact: Building the company’s sales and BD team and preparing it for expansion.

Also Read: A horse of another colour: Meet the 4 unicorns from e27 Luminaries

Inavoice

A one-stop solution for people in the creative industry who want to create their own audiovisual products. In addition to building a platform for voice-over talents which the startup began with, it has also expanded to include background music.

Luminary: Punto Adhil Dewanto

Role: Admin Staff

His impact: Establishing and running the company.

Jala Tech

Jala Tech is transforming the shrimp industry by offering a vastly improved management system. The goal of the company is to get farmers to make decisions based on actual data.  To do that, its system provides water quality monitoring, planning, and reporting tools, complete with a decision support system so that farmers can initiate the right treatment at the right time, based on data that has been collected and analysed.

Luminary: Christine Kombong

Role: BD Executive

Her impact: Helping the company’s community of shrimp farmers.

Koinworks

Brings together SMEs and lenders online under a single platform so that the former who have historically been underbanked by traditional financial institutions can borrow easily from the latter.

“Stand in your customer’s shoes. In KoinWorks, we know that COVID strikes hard for SMEs especially during the first hit, we are trying to understand their financial dilemma and craft a solution to reduce their stress and let them think about how to bounce back. So as COVID is the norm now, businesses are growing bigger than they are before because it’s just another lesson learned for their entrepreneurial journey,” said Jonathan Bryan CMO of Koinworks, on successfully enduring the pandemic.

Luminary: Jonathan Bryan

Role: Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)

His impact: Managing to maintain brand position amidst a challenging time.

Also Read: Meet the Singapore-based tech professionals of e27 Luminaries

MYCL

A fashion tech startup that cultivates mycelia (a type of fungus) along with sawdust to make a substitute for animal-based leather. Its designed process consumes far less water than the traditional animal-based leather-making processes.

Luminary: Jean Rosy Tency

Role: Head of HR

Her impact: Keeping the company’s morale high throughout the pandemic period.

OVO

A mobile app payment system that ensures that financial transactions are simple, instant, and secure. The platform provides its users with access to payments, transfers, cash-in/out, rewards, asset management, and investments.

Luminary: Jason Thompson

Role: CEO

His impact: Leading and growing the entire company.

Sociolla

An e-commerce platform for beauty products and a subsidiary of Social Bella, an integrated beauty-tech company that focuses on developing “a scalable and sustainable” online and offline ecosystem for beauty and personal care. One of its major goals is to empower customers to use local brands. 

Luminary: Ngoc Phungbich

Role: Chief Business Officer

Her impact: Driving successful expansion to Vietnam.

TaniHub

An agritech startup that focuses on bridging farmers to a wider market. Its business lines include TaniHub (an e-commerce platform for food and agricultural products), TaniFund (a P2P lending platform for farmers), and TaniSupply (a unit that works on improving agricultural supply chain).

Luminary: Astri Purnamasari

Role: VP Corporate Services

Her impact: Establishing a strong and robust company culture.

Tokopedia

An e-commerce giant that aims to build a super ecosystem where anyone can start and discover anything. The company works with various marketplaces, logistics, payments, and financial technology businesses, while also providing more than 500,000 payment points across Indonesia.

Despite the uncertainties that lied ahead, Tokopedia under the leadership of Widjaja made significant improvements to their technology.

One such example is how the team built a system capable of detecting unusual-priced healthcare products during the early phase of the pandemic after they noticed the rise in price and demand of such products.

Luminary: Herman Widjaja

Role: SVP and CTO

His impact: For his work in building a culture of innovation and teamwork as #OneTokopedia

Also Read: How Tokopedia managed customer experience and engagement amidst the pandemic

Xendit

A digital payment infrastructure company that enables businesses to accept digital payments without the need to implement integrations with individual providers. It has since expanded its services to include services such as fraud detection, lending, and tax management.

Luminary: Sujinun Jutakorn

Role: VP of Sales

Her impact: Leading the sales team and securing winning sales during the pandemic

Zenius

Zenius is an edutech startup that targets all education levels, from elementary school to senior high with public university test prep. The cost to subscribe to its online course starts from US$12 to US$46 per month. Zenius is said to already have a library of 80,000 educational videos.

Luminary: Rohan Monga

Role: CEO

His impact: Leading the introduction of new products to the market.

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