There’s no denying the influence that Singapore-based East Ventures has had on the Indonesian startup scene. The investment firm founded by Willson Cuaca, Batara Eto, Taiga Matsuyama, and Chandra Tjan in 2010 has made significant strides in the growth, expansion, and acquisition of some of the most well known technology oriented companies in the region. The company may be based in Singapore but its main area of interest is Indonesia. Out of the 26 companies that it has been involved with, 18 are Indonesian. This month marks the company’s third year in operation.
East Ventures helped drive Singapore blog Penn Olson shift its coverage from a marketing-oriented blog to a technology blog in early 2010 before it underwent a name change to Tech In Asia last year and become one of Asia’s more significant online media properties.
Out of the twenty active companies, East Ventures has focused primarily on e-commerce businesses along with a handful of media and services companies. Among East Ventures’ local investments, Disdus and Urbanesia are two of the startups that it has managed to offload to major corporations, Disdus to Groupon and Urbanesia to Indonesia’s Kompas group, and ten others have managed to receive additional funding.
On the flip side, it has had six startups that have folded, which are Trendie.st, Found, and four from the East Ventures Alpha accelerator program, Red Eclipse, Velmery, MacaMoco, and Whappa Games.
With five events in three years and running an accelerator program, undoubtedly East Ventures will continue to make further investments in the Indonesian tech scene and perhaps even expanding to the rest of the region.
East Ventures has provided an infographic marking its achievements in three years.
