Indonesia Weekly Review: 3 Archipelago Startup Stories You Don’t Want To Miss This Week [17 July – 22 July]

From mergers & acquisitions to fundings and contests, here is the next edition of Indonesia weekly review – your weekly dose of the latest happenings from the Indonesia startup ecosystem.

Indonesia Based Julo Raises Seed Funding

Indonesia-based peer-to-peer (P2P) lending company Julo raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from East Ventures, Skystar Capital, and Convergence Ventures.

The startup will be utilising the fund to reach up to 10,000 users within the next year. A portion of the investment will also be spent on distribution.

Founded by former Silicon Valley executives Adrianus Hitijahubessy, Hans Sebastian, and Victor Darmadi, Julo is an online alternative lending platform that works by matching individuals looking for loans with institutional lenders.

It currently competes with startups such as Taralite and Inestree.

Tokopedia Confirms Fund Raising

Indonesia’s Tokopedia is looking to raise funds and is in talks with potential investors. As per reports from DealStreetAsia, it is in talks with Chinese e-commerce major JD.com – Alibaba’s largest rival.

Of late, the company has been denying that it is making efforts to raise funds but during a recent media interaction, Founder Leonitus Alpha Edison and VP Amit Lakhotia accepted the fact.

“Well, everybody is fundraising. Everybody is talking to VCs right now. Don’t worry, we will always announce our fundraises to the media,” said Edison.

Tokopedia had earlier raised around $150 Mn in an undisclosed round last year from several venture capital firms including Amasia, which has offices in Singapore and California. That funding round, which valued the company at well over a billion dollars, brought the total amount raised by SoftBank-backed Tokopedia to around $250 Mn.

Image Credit: DealStreetAsia

ANGIN’s Startup Investor Site Connector.id To Launch Full Version Soon

Startup-investor matchmaking platform Connector.id is on course to launch its full-stack version by the end of July.

Connector – powered by Indonesian angel investor network (ANGIN) and the UNDP – has garnered over 400 startup applications since its beta version was introduced two weeks ago.

The idea is to help startup founders find the right investors for their ventures. Denita Putri, an associate of ANGIN, revealed that the full version will allow founders to discover the exact names of capital providers that are most relevant to them.

So far, the Connector team has received more than 420 applicants, of which 70 per cent are technology companies. In the long run, Connector aims to reduce its dependence on donor funding. It is mulling over a plan to monetise the business so that it could fund itself.

Stay tuned for next week’s edition of Indonesia startup news.