William Gozali, VP Investment, BRI Ventures
In mid-2019, Indonesian state-owned Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI) made headline when it launched a corporate venture capital (CVC) firm —BRI Ventures.
The launch of the CVC firm was the latest in the ongoing trend of local banks and mega-corporations dipping their feet into tech investment. Even William Gozali, VP Investment at BRI Ventures, admitted that BRI was “a bit late to the party.”
But the decision to enter the VC scene this year was not without consideration.
“Being late to the party enables us to learn from others’ experience,” he speaks to the press at the sideline of Nexticorn International Summit on Friday in Bali.
“Now is the right time for us to launch as we can move with calculated risks … With everything that we have learned, we should be able to catch up,” he continues.
Launched with a US$250 million fund in tow, BRI Ventures is aiming for startups in the Series A and B stage. The firm is looking for companies with a working business model and product, with the potential to collaborate with BRI.
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It is currently focussing on fintech and fintech enabler companies. However, next year, it will start investing in other verticals such as the creative industry (including fashion), agriculture and maritime, education, healthcare, and travel.
“Agriculture and maritime are on the list because they have been in BRI’s DNA since a long time ago,” Gozali points out, referring to the bank’s subsidiaries such as BRI Agro, which invested in the agriculture industries.
By working with BRI, startups will have the opportunity to leverage the company’s existing assets, such as its 80 million customer base in Indonesia.
“It will be more efficient for the startups as they do not have to prepare an extra budget for customer acquisitions,” Gozali says.
This is also the reason why BRI Ventures is focussing on later-stage investment.
“We don’t want the startup’s server to crash as it handles our large customer base. We need to see if they are ready [to work at this capacity],” Gozali explains.
This year, one of BRI Ventures’ most notable investments is LinkAja, the e-wallet platform formerly known as TCASH.
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On the unicorn hype
At the Nexticorn International Summit, which ran from November 14-15 in Bali, one of the most talked-about topics is the recent IPO failure of coworking space giant WeWork.
It has sparked discussions on how the Indonesian startup community should view the unicorn phenomenon.
“Even before the case [that happened to WeWork], we have always been prudent,” Gozali says.
“Bubble happens because of overhyping and too much confidence, combined with a lack of good governance. This is why we try to implement BRI’s level of discipline to BRI Ventures. At the end of the day, it’s all about business. And business is all about making value, not valuation,” he elaborates.
When it comes to burning cash, which seems to have become the go-to method for a startup to acquire its users, Gozali has his own opinion.
“Startups in Indonesia are relatively young. We just went through our first decade, with lessons to implement in the next decade. [It is understandable] to burn cash as they need extra effort to educate the consumers,” he says.
“But we notice that even some of the biggest players are putting more focus on profitability. It is a great trend because we do not want price wars. We want to see the best product wins,” he continues.
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The venture capital game
BRI Ventures is not the only initiative that BRI made to tap into the digital era. The bank has run hackathons and incubator programme; the CVC firm happens to be the initiative it launched to target later-stage startups.
“The most exciting thing about working in VC is that no two deals are the same. Nothing is predictable. What works in the US may not work here … and it is actually the other way around today: Uber is trying to copy gojek’s super app concept,” Gozali says.
“We need to both learn and unlearn,” he closed.
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