Indonesia Weekly Review: 5 Archipelago Startup Stories You Don’t Want To Miss This Week [2-7 October]

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

Government Of Indonesia To Levy Ecommerce Tax Soon

According to Yustinus Prastowo, Executive Director of the Center for Indonesia Taxation Analysis, a lot remains to be done to facilitate the sector’s growth.

Prastowo has advised the government to work on creating a balance between its efforts to fill the state treasury through increased taxation and its support for the country’s emerging ecommerce sector.

This comes at a time when the Directorate General of Taxation is in the process of formulating a plan to impose value-added tax on every ecommerce transaction. The move is aimed at boosting revenue collection in the coming three months.

Grab Dominates Indonesia With Its Latest Expansion To 75 Cities

Grab Indonesia is expanding its services to 75 cities across the country, claiming to be the first on-demand transportation to serve eastern and western province of Indonesia.

The expansion also puts Grab as the largest mobile platform in Indonesia in terms of geographical availability in the nation.

The competition between Grab and Go-Jek continues to escalate and would likely to go beyond Indonesia, as Go-Jek revealed plan earlier this week for overseas expansion in “three or four” Southeast Asian countries.

Kioson Gets Listed On Indonesia Stock Exchange

Jakarta based ecommerce online-to-offline (O2O) startup Kioson listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange yesterday (October 5), raised $3.4 Mn(IDR45.6 Bn) in its initial offering period of September 26-28. This makes Kioson the first tech startup in the country to go for an IPO.

Kioson issued 150 Mn shares selling at $0.02 (IDR 268) per share, equivalent to 23.07% of total shares. The IPO was oversubscribed more than 10 times during the bidding period and Kioson’s shares rose 50% on their debut on the stock exchange.

This makes Kioson the 24th listing on the Indonesian stock exchange this year of a total of 558 scheduled for this year.

The startup will use almost 76% of the proceeds to acquire PT Monjes Investama’s 99.34% stake in PT Narindo Solusi Komunikasi (Narindo), a digital product distributor. The acquisition which is estimated at $2.25 Mn ( IDR 30.2 Bn) will begin next week. The remaining funds will be used in fulfilling operational costs. Kioson is targeting to be profitable in 2018.

Five Malaysian Startup Seek To Enter Indonesian Market Via ExpandIn Programme

Indonesia’s Yacademy officially ended their third market immersion programme ExpandIn (formerly known as the Frequent Flyer Geek Programme).

After one week of virtual classes and two weeks of preparation, the five startups — Swingvy, Evenesis, Getslurp, iKargo, and EuropeanBedding — arrived in Jakarta for the second part of the programme.

This final part includes meetings, mentoring, and pitching sessions with Indonesian startup ecosystem leaders and local investors.

Just like the previous two immersion programmes, ExpandIn is backed by Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC). The programme aims to provide a soft-landing pad for expansion, with successful market entry as the main goal.

Indonesian Fintech Startup Kredivo Raises Series A Funding

Kredivo, a fintech startup catering to ecommerce consumers, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding in a round led by Jungle Ventures and NSI Ventures. Although the deal was finalised a couple of months back, details of the financing have only recently been made public.

Headquartered in Singapore, the company facilitates digital payments in the ecommerce sector. Last year, the fintech startup extended its services to consumers and online shoppers in Indonesia.

Last year, Kredivo raised an undisclosed amount of Seed funding from Jungle Ventures, GMO Venture Partners, AlphaJWC Ventures, 500 Startups and a group of angel investors.

Stay tuned for the next week Indonesia weekly review!

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