Indonesia-based solar power-as-a-service startup Xurya has completed its Series A financing of US$21.5 million (Rp 308 billion), it announced today.

East Ventures (Growth Fund), formerly EV Growth, and local investment firm Saratoga, co-led the round. Existing investors Schneider Electric and New Energy Nexus Indonesia (a smart energy-dedicated incubation and accelerator programme), also participated.

Xurya plans to utilise the capital to continue the construction of its Rooftop Solar Power Plant (PLTS), which it said witnessed a 3x growth in 2021. A portion of the money will also be used to develop technology and human resources.

Also read: Why 2021 was a landmark year for the carbon market

Launch in 2018, Xurya offers a “no investment” method with a rental system to make it easier for industry players to transition to solar energy. Its “one-stop solution” covers PLTS feasibility studies, installation, operation, and maintenance (including component replacement).

To date, Xurya claims to have delivered more than 50 PLTS projects with a multi-megawatt power generation portfolio. It caters to various industries, including manufacturing (F&B, FMCG, building materials, steel, textiles, and garments), cold storage, logistics centres, hotels, and shopping centres in various cities in Indonesia. 

Xurya counts Tokopedia, Traveloka, logistics giant MGM Bosco, and Jakarta shopping mall Plaza Indonesia among its clients.

PLTS is also one of the initiatives supported by President Joko Widodo to reduce dependence on fossil fuel energy. The government is making a serious effort to bring the new and renewable energy mix to 23 per cent by 2025 and 31 per cent by 2050, as laid out in the country’s National Energy Plan.

Also read: How debt financing, crypto, SPACs keep the climate-tech funding momentum in SEA

Formed in 2018 as a joint venture between East Ventures, Sinar Mas-backed SMDV, and Yahoo! Japan Capital, EV Growth was rebranded as East Ventures (Growth Fund) in March last year. The firm is looking to complete the final close of its second fund by Q1 2022, DealStreetAsia reported.

 

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Image Credit: Xurya

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Vietnam-based social commerce startup, ON, has received US$1.1 million in a seed funding round led by local VC firm Touchstone Partners, with participation from VC firm-cum-accelerator ThinkZone Ventures.

With this, ON intends to expand its presence locally and develop tech solutions to serve sellers’ management, delivery, and capital needs.

ON was founded in 2021 by Giang Nguyen (a former tech lead at Vietnamese ICT giant FPT), Dzung Luu (who previously led the operation at Vietnamese ride-hailing startup BE) and Minh Nguyen (former CFO of Logivan).

The startup helps entrepreneurs earn extra income by starting an online business with assistance in orders, fulfilment, returns, shipping, and transactions. Sellers on the platform use social media networks to promote an item and receive a commission. Each seller may earn up to US$300 each month, the firm claims.

Also read: A look at the future of social commerce

“With e-commerce set to see robust growth in Vietnam, we believe social commerce has enormous potential,” said Khanh Tran, Managing Partner of Touchstone Partners. “This is a very local business, and ON’s founders have the local market experience and expertise to play a significant role in driving its growth.”

Since its inception, ON claims more than 10,000 people signed up to sell on the platform, of whom 90 per cent are women. The vast majority of dealers are located in small towns or rural areas. 

According to a Google and Bain & Company report, Vietnam is predicted to be the fastest-growing e-commerce market in Southeast Asia by 2026, with e-commerce gross merchandise value (GMV) reaching 56 billion USD by 2026, 4.5 times the estimated value of 2021. 

Social commerce is a concept that first took off in China and then slowly spread to different regions in the world. In the country, social commerce accounts for around 11.6 per cent of the total retail e-commerce sales, with over US$186 billion in 2019. Amid the COVID-19 crisis, the global social commerce market is estimated to increase at a soaring rate of 31.4 per cent.

Last year, global investors had poured into SEA social commerce startups, including Indonesia’s Desty, Kitabeli, Super, and Segari; Singapore’s abilion and Raena; and Vietnam’s Mio.

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Image Credit: ON

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Borrowing has always been fuelling the growth of developing economies as corporates and even retail borrowers’ take out loans to fund expansion or other such big purchases.

In India, lending by banks and NBFCs have multiple levels of checks and balances before sanctioning the loan. A rise in NPAs (Non-Performing Assets), is making it harder for borrowers to get a loan.

There are multiple stages discussed below which the borrower has to go through during the loan application stage, right from applying for a loan to submitting his income proofs. One of the most critical stages in the lending process is credit underwriting, which involves assessing the borrower’s creditworthiness.

In this stage, the lender checks the borrower’s credit score, current debt levels, any financial frauds they have committed in the past, income, credit length, etc.

Problems with the lending system in India

After an in-depth analysis, the lender judges the borrower’s ability to repay the loan amount they have applied. Underwriting is a cumbersome process that takes a few days, even sometimes weeks or months.

The borrower’s credit score is given priority by the lenders as it tells a lot about your money management habits in the world of traditional finance. The maximum credit score in India is 900, and one has to have a credit score of at least 700 to be eligible to get the loan.

Also Read: GuavaPass co-founders new alternative lending startup Jenfi lands US$6.3M led by Monk’s Hill

If you have a credit score below 500, then there are high chances that you will face difficulty in getting a loan. This is why many borrowers are denied credit by established banks and other financial institutions in India.

Due to this a crucial loan concept called the ‘intent to pay’ and the ‘ability to pay’, are disregarded as abstract since there is no better way to measure them.

Tapping into ‘Ability to Pay’ information

Income data is not available in credit score reports given to lenders by credit bureaus like Experian, TransUnion CIBIL, Equifax, CRIF Highmark, etc. The credit score only gives you the historical repayment habits of the borrowers, thus only reflecting their willingness or intent to pay.

But, what about his ability to pay?

Income data can be extracted from APIs based on payroll data to determine the borrower’s ability to pay. Assessing the ability to pay is equally important as assessing the intent to pay. This is because, let’s say, both you and India’s richest man have a credit score of 850, indicating a very high intent to pay.

However, both your income levels are completely different and thus your ability to pay will also be different. We need income proof documents to assess this ability to pay that can be taken from payroll APIs.

Fintech to the resuce

Fintech companies have changed this dynamic completely with innovation in risk assessment in the lending process. To provide the best services to their customers, fintech companies are automating the entire underwriting process with data fed into machine learning algorithms that are super quick.

Thus, there is better transparency and no human intervention, as decision-making is data-driven and free from bias. This new technology-driven lending landscape is here to stay and rule going forward. Traditional banks are now collaborating with fintech players to harness this limitless potential of data and technology to use that data to make informed decisions.

Also Read: Matching-making for loans: Why online lending platform Lendela has set its eyes on Asia

Fintech companies are now unleashing the potential of payroll data with open banking via APIs. The lenders are now getting this data and other employment information to make informed decisions on the loan application to curb NPA frauds.

This confidential data sharing is pre-authorised by the borrower thus retaining privacy. It also helps the lenders design a repayment schedule based on the borrower’s payroll.

When the lender asks for banking data from the borrower, there are chances that the data will not be recent. On the contrary, the payroll API-based data is precise and updated to the latest minute. This accuracy and reliability of data help in credit underwriting decisions.

The lead conversion ratio is much higher in cases where payroll data is involved compared to borrowers’ banking data. Many studies conducted show that borrowers are more comfortable sharing their payroll-related information instead of their banking-related data.

Innovation in the payroll space is booming, proving it as the next frontier in the fintech landscape. Payroll attached APIs are fast, secure, reliable, efficient, and help FinTech innovators explore other use cases that deliver value to customers.

Tartan is pioneering user consent-driven payroll data exchange in India, which plays different roles in people’s daily lives behind the scenes, making their financial lives easier.

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Indonesia’s wealth tech startup Pluang announced today that it has added US$55 million more to its ongoing Series B round of financing, led by Accel Partners.

BRI Ventures, alongside existing investors Square Peg, Go-Ventures, UOB Venture Management, and Openspace Ventures, also co-invested.

Other investors who joined the round include Axie Infinity co-founders Trung Nguyen, Andy Ho, Aleksander Leonard Larsen, and Jeffrey Zirlin; ex-LearnVest CEO Alexa von Tobel; Pismo CTO Daniela Binatti; Monzo COO Sujata Bhatia; Public.com co-CEOs Jannick Malling and Leif Abraham; FalconX CEO Raghu Yarlagadda; Flink CEO Sergio Jimenez; The Chainsmokers; and Gold House.

Also Read: Pluang raises additional US$35M, bringing total funding this year to US$55M

The new infusion comes barely four months after Pluang bagged US$35 million in the round. With this, the total Series B investment raised by the company has touched US$110 million.

The fresh capital will be used to continue building its technology and expanding its offerings to more asset classes, such as Indonesian stocks and more global equities. Pluang also has plans to expand its services to other Southeast Asian countries.

Founded by Claudia Kolonas and Richard Chua while at Harvard Business School, Pluang provides easy access to micro-savings and micro-investment products in Indonesia. By logging into its mobile app, users can check or top up their accounts, make transactions or cash out anywhere anytime. Users can make micro-savings as low as ~US$0.50.

Also Read: Digital micro-savings startup Pluang raises US$3M, becomes the latest Go-Ventures’ portfolio

Pluang offers gold, US equity indices and cryptocurrencies.

Currently, the wealth tech firm claims it has over four million registered users in the archipelago. Between January 2020 and November 2021, Pluang posted a 22x growth in monthly transacting users.

Last March, Pluang announced a US$20 million pre-Series B round led by Openspace Ventures, with participation from Go-Ventures. Two years earlier, the startup bagged US$3 million in Series A funding.

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Recently, journalist Micah Carnahan published a contributed post on e27 that digs into the reason why NFTs are so widely accepted in the Southeast Asian market. In addition to its relatively low entry price, the market also has a great awareness of the digital assets relatively early, enabling it to ramp up adoption rates rapidly.

As the popularity of NFTs in the Southeast Asian market continues to soar, the market begins to see various communities launching initiatives to promote the digital asset to a wider audience.

In Indonesia, the latest such initiative includes the opening of Superlative Gallery in Legian, Bali, on Tuesday by the local NFT collector community Superlative Secret Society.

Claimed to be the first offline NFT gallery in the country, it will feature a collection of avatars of Superlative Secret Society’s artworks. These artworks are created by local artists in the community and will be available to purchase as NFTs.

“We are extremely enthusiastic about the opening and operations of the Superlative Gallery, the first offline NFT gallery in Indonesia. It is an honour for us to accommodate local Indonesian artists to participate and grow together in this era of digital assets,” says Illustrator and Superlative Secret Society Founder Moh. Arif Wijaksana in a press statement.

Following up the launch of the gallery, the community is hosting a series of events from January 11 to 16, featuring notable names in the local blockchain, NFT, and crypto ecosystems such as Tokocrypto, ID NFT and MOT.

Also Read: Demystifying NFTs and DeFi

NFTs for everybody

In an email interview with e27, Prasetyo Budiman, CEO & Founder of Superlative Secret Society, explains that the gallery is one of the community’s ways to facilitate local Indonesian artists in their journey to understand and implement the use of NFTs.

He describes a wide array of segments as the gallery’s target audience from NFT enthusiasts, holders, local and international artists, and basically “anyone who would like to learn and understand more about how digital assets such as NFTs work.”

There are also several reasons why Bali is chosen as the ideal location to open this gallery.

“Bali is already a well-known destination with a massive base of Indonesian artists community thriving in it; residents of the island also come from different countries around the world. Our goal is to introduce the works of local Indonesian artists to international audiences,” Budiman says.

Budiman says that the gallery was designed to become a platform for artists and global NFT items collectors.

Also Read: ‘NFTs provide new ways to handle IP management, empower content creators’: Inmagine CEO Warren Leow

“All this time, we have been interacting only through online platforms. This is why the gallery is an opportunity for holders to inform and educate the general public about how NFT works, with particular focus on local artists in Indonesia,” he says. “We are hoping to contribute more to the development of digital creative industries, digital assets, and even the tourism industry through the works of local Indonesian artists.”

What is next for Superlative Secret Society

In addition to launching its first offline gallery, the community is also set to introduce other programmes to help Indonesian artists reach a wider audience. For example, they are going to display the works of Indonesian artists in Times Square, New York City, for seven days.

“We want to send out a message to the public, particularly holders and members of our community in the US. The support of our members has provided us with the motivation to provide the best, and to take part in more international NFT events,” Budiman says.

At the opening of the gallery, the community also showcased a teaser of REPUS, the second batch of its NFT collections. Some of the artworks that are being displayed in the batch already have their intellectual property rights registered and are now applying for a trade brand certification.

Superlative Secret Society entered the OpenSea platform in September 2021. Since then, the community has had 11,110 artworks avatars on board and more than 16,000 members in its Discord.

“We came from a diverse background, starting out with chats and contacts through Twitter. We have the dream to give more value to Indonesian artworks by introducing them to local and international markets. This is why we build a platform for NFT enthusiasts and start building a digital asset community … most of our members are from abroad and they are also collecting the artworks that we make,” Budiman says.

As for the future, the community wants to continue educating the Indonesian artists’ community on the advantages of NFTs. They also plan to open several pop art exhibitions in Jakarta and operates the gallery in Bali.

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Image Credit: Superlative Secret Society

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