Lamudi property marketplace announced five cities, all located in developing countries, which are claimed to have the best potential to be the next Silicon Valley. Surprisingly, Jakarta becomes one of those five, along with Medellin (Colombia), Amman (Jordan), Lahore (Pakistan), and Lagos (Nigeria).
Prior to the inclusion of Jakarta, Lamudi argued:
Vast growing middle class keeps coming to the city, bringing with it stronger purchasing power, higher mobile internet penetration and much more demands for online services – opening opportunities for fresh business ideas. The result is better market for tech startups to explore. Even though there has yet any assistance from the government, there are more Indonesian investors, like Merah Putih Inc, GDP Venture, East Venture, and GREE Venture, that enter the market. To overcome the challenges that emerge from the city’s vast growth, the startups are forced to be practical as they have to monetize since the very first day. That’s why Jakarta is the home of startups that focus on travel, e-commerce, and lifestyle, like Lamudi property portal which was established in the beginning of 2014.
The presence of investors and strong purchasing power are indeed the most fundamental factors behind the success of San Fransisco and Silicon Valley in becoming the core of world’s startup industry. Jakarta, despite having far-from-perfect traffic condition, has those two factors, so do other selected cities.
As a matter of fact, these two factors are what both Bandung and Yogyakarta lacking of, which make them not being incuded as one of the “next Silicon Valley” candidates, despite the fact that both produce high quality developers and designers.
Well, this survey by Lamudi is indeed debatable. Even so, it’s quite rational as well.
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