India-based venture capital Aavishkaar plans on bringing $75 million (around 100 billion Rupiah) Series A funding to four countries with highest startup growth, and Indonesia is one of them. As Aavishkaar’s Senior Investment Manager Adi Sudewa, the company’s representative for Indonesia, suggested, the Aavishkaar Frontier Fund (AFF) will be focused outside India to provide Series A funding in farming, health, education, water and sanitation, and renewable energy sector.
Aavishkaar is indeed well known for its investment on startups with various background, not only IT-based ones. In India, Aavishkaar has supported no less than 44 startups. Besides Indonesia, the other countries the VC is interested in are Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. Adi Sudewa really hoped that Indonesia will cover a major part of the funding.
Indonesia indeed is very promising. Not only that the country is vested with the potential of product development, Indonesia also possesses a highly potential market for startup’s product marketing, with consistently rising mobile and internet consumption flowing all over the country.
There have been many big players entering Indonesia. Japan-based ones dominate the game, as names like SoftBank, CyberAgent Venture, and IMJ Investment Partner supporting startups in the country. India and China-based investors seem to be interested as well, encouraging them to have a piece of the cake.
Although hinting that it will focus on various sectors, Aavishkaar suggested that health sector will be very interesting to look for. The word has it that startups like MeetDoctor, UDoctor, and KlikDokter are in the company’s blueprint already. Aavishkaar has been operating since the beginning of this month and expecting that it can always make better fit to the market. Compared to the trend of funding in India, the pattern indeed is different.
While other VCs are racing to invest in Indonesia’s e-commerce sector, which is in the spotlight nowadays, Aavishkaar prefers a different path. This is definitely an excellent opportunity for startups in other sectors to seal an external funding.
