JAKARTA (TheInsiderStories) - BRI Ventures, the venture capital armed of state lender, PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia, is reported had completed the first technology fund of Rp300 billion (US$21.28 million). Part of the funds distributes to its venture fund, Dana Sembrani Nusantara, worth of Rp150 billion.
The investors involved in the fundraising are Malaysia’ decacorn, Grab Holdings Inc., Celebes Capital, Investree, Fazz Financial Group and individual investor, Pandu Sjahrir. BRI Ventures plans to use the new capital to make early-stage investments in education, agro-maritime, retail, transportation and health care in Indonesia.
BRI Ventures‘ CEO, Nicko Widjaja, said the company aims to finance small and medium-sized companies and help them go digital. The strategy align with the strength of its parent as one of the largest lenders in Indonesia specializing in micro-finance.
In June 2020, the company launched PT Sembrani Nusantara. As the initial targets, the unit to collects Rp300 billion from investors to back future local tech firms, especially non FinTech. He said, there would be a series of selection processes before the capital was injected.
The new funding would be focused on the seed-growth stage which consisted of Series A funding like education, agro-maritime, retail, transportation, and health. The parent prepared $250 million funds for BRI Ventures to develop FinTech businesses.
“As a bank with the largest network in Indonesia, we want to open up opportunities to collaborate with FinTech startups,” said Indra Utoyo, director at the bank last year.
In May, BRI Ventures and Visa have invested an undisclosed amount to Nium, FinTech based in Singapore. The new funding part of a Series C round of $45 million started in 2018. Earlier, the tech firm has raised $20 million capital from other local venture capital MDI Ventures and Thailand-based Beacon Venture Capital, unit of Kasikornbank.
Earlier, the venture capital fimr joined with MUIP, the venture arm of Japan’ Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc., injected Series C funding to Investree with total amount $23.5 million. Other investors involved in the series are Japan’ SBI Holdings and China’ 9F Group, whom also joined the series B funding round. It said, the series C round will remain open and the company will provide further updates in due course.
BRI Ventures businesses focuses on equity participation and has invested in several startups such as TaniHub, Investree, Modalku, Nium, Ayopop, and LinkAja. To help the plans, the company prepares $250 million to develop financial technology (FinTech) startups.
Last year, director at Bank Rakyat Indonesia, Indra Utoyo, said that BRI also opened up opportunities for FinTechs to take advantage of BRIAPI (BRI Application Programming Interface). BRIAPI is expected to be a bridge between the bank and the startup industry which continues to grow.
The FinTech industry is growing rapidly in Indonesia. Referring to data released by AFTECH, from 235 tech startups in various sectors, the payment sector recorded the largest portion reaching 39 percent and then followed by the lending sector or loans at 32 percent. Of these, currently there are various FinTechs that are working with the lender including Gojek, Shopee, Tokopedia, Dana, Investree, and others.
US$1: Rp14,100
Written by Editorial Staff, Email: theinsiderstories@gmail.com
