It was just yesterday (4/9) that Malesbanget.com (MBDC) made its new funding from Rebright Partners and 500 Startups public. The startup now aim big, after had just replenished its website with new and fresh look last April 2014. According to the press release, it is MBDC’s business model and distinctive contents that attracted the investors to invest. This was confirmed by Rebright Partners’ General Partner, Takeshi Ebihara. He stated that MBDC could accommodate people’s needs of the latest online contents.
“The demand for online contents, especially motion ones (video) keeps going up each and every day all over the world, and Indonesia isn’t an exception. MBDC Media is able to fulfill people’s crave through their viral media, Malesbanget.com, and their motion contents productivity, for Youtube and other online/offline media, that the startup possesses. Looking at its majestic revenue combined with our investment, we do expect that MBDC can level up their production and distribution in order to enable us fulfilling such massive demands on online contents,” Takeshi said.
Khailee Ng, the 500 Startups’ Venture Partner and Says.com’s Co-Founder and CEO, also believes that MBDC might be the future of Indonesia’s entertainment provider. “Indonesia is one of largest markets in the world, and we are given such privilege to invest there by MBDC. We perceive that MBDC’s business growth would be what Indonesia has craved all these times,” Khailee stated.
Although the funding remained undisclosed, it was stated that the nominal would be allocated to develop the team and enhance the content production and infrastructure to enable the startup providing even much better contents with higher quality.
The attraction of MBDC lies on its fresh, innovative, and funny contents, which have invited visitors to spend hours on its website ever since 2011. In this regard, the video contents have been one of MBDC’s most popular segment, having the videos posted both on its main website and at Youtube being subscribed by more than 200 thousands subscribers. Other most favorite contents are kamusslang.com and darikamu.malesbanget.com.
While most of media prefer to use ads banners or click-on-ads as their monetization, MBDC remains confident of using its own unique and uncommon business model. It prefers to partner with major brands, like Telkomsel, Aqua, Samsung, and Microsoft, to produce contents, such as videos and articles, which are related to the business model of its partners. One of the startup’s most successful product was Telkomsel-sponsored “Jalan-Jalan Men” web series which had the opportunity to be broadcasted offline via Global TV, a local TV station.
Furthermore, it’s not possible that MBDC will make use of the funding to enter the mobile industry as well, whether by developing a mobile app or other products. However, Christian Sugiono, the MBDC’s CEO, gave his words that the content development would remain his team’s first priority.
“We always intend to enrich Indonesian audience with high quality contents. This involvement of Rebright Partners and 500 Startups is something fundamental for us. Their financial support, combined with our creativity and technology, would enable us growing much faster to reach our dream of being a technology-based media company,” Christian stated.
