Investments in Indonesia is going crazy these days, everyone’s doing something with tech startups – sort of. These days, I’m seeing more fund being set up rather than high-quality startup launches, which proofs that everybody is trying to get a piece of the cake but the startups aren’t prepared yet, or the startups simply doesn’t need fund (less likely).
So, in this post I’m gonna give some overview info on the several tech investment funds being set up to invest in Indonesian startup companies, their background and portfolios. Hopefully this can give you guys a clear objective comparison on the investors currently active on looking and partnering with startups in a form of an incubator, business accelerator or venture capital.
East Ventures
The first investment company focusing on tech startups in Indonesia, based in Singapore but managed by 3 Indonesians : Batara Eto (ex Mixi.jp), Chandra and Willson Cuaca (XSago). They also have partners in Japan, I would guess most of their fund came from Japanese investors. East Ventures usually invest in early stage startups, and we’ve heard that each investment ranging from US$200-500k in exchange for 15-30% equity.
Portfolio : Tokopedia, Urbanesia, Disdus (sold to Groupon), Penn-Olson, TeknoUp, Scraplr, AppsFoundry, PriceArea, Nightspade.
MerahPutih Inc,
An incubation fund set up by Djarum Group that gives incubation space, resources and capital for early-mid stage startups. MPI take at least 25% equity in exchange for capital, office space, human resources, marketing effort etc. They’re a part of a larger fund, GDP Ventures, will be explained below.
Portfolio : Dailysocial (yep, that’s us), Krazymarket, Infokost, Bolalob, Lintas.me.
GDP Ventures
A fund set up by Djarum Group focusing on larger and more mature tech, mobile and internet companies. They’re not interested in early stage startups, only profitable startups who need partner to scale the business. Currently, they only have one portfolio company and it’s probably one of the most high profile tech company in Indonesia, Kaskus.us.
InvestIdea
Nothing much about this fund except that they have funded 3 startups : Kartumuu, Bistip and WhuzzNet. You can check out their website InvestIdea.net.
Nusantara Ventures
A Singapore-based fund set up as a joint venture between several companies, with Indonesia’s Bakrie Group and IDG Ventures as the major stakeholder. Nusantara Ventures just launched this year although it began operating since last year and focusing on later-stage companies with plans to scale globally.
Nusantara Incubation Fund
A private investment firm set up by media magnate and technologist Anindya Bakrie of Bakrie & Brothers in conjunction with Bakrie Groups’ BtelVision2.0 plan. It’s an US$10 million fund and they only invest in early stage startups with valuations between US$1-5 million. Fund managed by Shinta Dhanuwardoyo, Hasan Yahya and Erik Meijer, and so far they haven’t announced any portfolio.
Bandung Ventures
It’s pretty obvious that these guys are focusing on investing Bandung-based startups, and that’s because they claim to have deep links with Bandung Institute of Technology who has been producing high quality engineers. Bandung Ventures is managed by Jeff Paine from Battle Ventures and Colin Gan.
Bandung Ventures makes seed-stage investments in the ecosystem of creative innovation in and from Bandung. They want first money in, and the typical investment size is US$1,000-10,000. They also plan to invest as part of a syndicate of angels and early stage funds. So far, no portfolio.
Raja Capital
Founded in 2011, Raja Capital is one of the early Indonesian-based venture capital that specializes in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in three main sectors: the Internet, mobile technology, software technology. Fund managed by Gunther M. Tampubolon, Ibnu Magda and Estu Larasati.
Ideosource
Founded by ex-Plasa.com CIO, Andi S Boediman and managed by several influential people in the tech, marketing, and telco industries in Indonesia. They’re a US$5 million fund with focus on seed investment and incubation programs for all their companies. They launched end of June 2011 and currently have event management startup, eEvent, under their umbrella.
Jakarta Founder Institute
Yet to be launched October 2011 but with a big name like that, shouldn’t be hard for them to find portfolio companies. Essentially an intense single semester business school for entrepreneurs to help shape, accelerate, and launch their ideas, projects, or companies by the end of the course.
Inaugural semester is scheduled to begin in October 2011 with SF Founder Institute graduates Sanny Gaddafi, and Novistiar Rustandi as directors along with Andy Zain from Mobile Monday Indonesia. Mentors include Andi S. Boediman (IDS, Ideosource), Batara Eto (Mixi, East Ventures), Izak Jenie (Jatis, Nexian), and many more.
Project Eden
Backed by Jardintech Capital, is run by some of the most influential people in Indonesia’s digital marketing scene and startuplokal community. Project Eden claims to be Indonesia’s first tech startup accelerator, but they haven’t announced any deals just yet.
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Did I miss anything from the list or there’s more info you would like to add? Would love to hear back from you via comment.
June 30 4:10pm – updated information on Founder Institute
Rama, thanks, you answered my question in #startupLokal 🙂
Reposted to various milis and tweets
Dun forget that there are several other smaller investors, like:
o) PT. Inti (based in Bandung), one of the investment are: wikimu.com, berapaberapa.com, virtualvending.com (deadpool) (Was Intimedia WebVentures)
o) Telkomsel -> Funded LangitMusik, and some other Mobile Content Provider
o) Global Mediacom/MNC Group -> Mostly purchase/license based. Such as Rakuten; and an online classifieds buying and selling Board
o) M-Stars -> Ad-Stars, Asia Mobile Transactions (deadpool), LiLO Game (pretty much stagnant)
o) (disclosed) -> Funded a Daily Deals site, and some of the upcoming Game related titles
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