Indonesia Weekly Review: 3 Archipelago Startup Stories You Don’t Want To Miss This Week [19 December – 24 December]

Tech entrepreneurs are gravitating to locations beyond the Silicon Valley to fulfill their startup dreams. While there is a surge in the number of startups in India, China, Singapore, and Japan, the Indonesian startup market is quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with.

The following are some of the announcements made this week, that we at Inc42 managed to gather:

Uber Joins Hands With Indonesian Taxi Company Express Group

Ride-hailing giant Uber and Indonesian leading transportation company Express Group have entered in a collaboration in the form of a ride-sharing integration and financing scheme pilot programmes in Jakarta, according to Singapore News.

Under the partnership, Express taxi drivers will be able to pick up customers using the Uber app. But unlike Grab’s taxi-booking feature GrabTaxi, which is in the form of a special section in its app to book taxis, the Express taxi will be available under the UberX feature.

Customers will be notified if the car that has been picked for them, happens to be an Express taxi. Express taxis will also be using the UberX tariff scheme. Apart from booking, Express taxi drivers will also have the option to apply for (unbranded) car installments via Uber’s Vehicle Solutions programme.

Express Group is one of the leading taxi companies in Indonesia, and claims to have 11,000 units of taxis across the country. Prior to this partnership, it has partnered with Indosat Ooredoo-backed startup SITU to launch MyTrip, a taxi-booking app. It was also Grab’s taxi partner when the startup first introduced GrabTaxi in the Indonesian market.

Banopolis Partners With Indonesian Govt To Launch First Bike Sharing Platform In Bandung

West Java-based startup Banopolis has partnered with PT LEN Industri to roll the bike-sharing system, reports e27. It is expected to launch in early 2017, with 30 stations and 270 units of bicycle distributed the highly busy areas of the cities, like intersection between Cihampelas and Pasteur.

The project was first launched as barebones bike-sharing system – which was developed along the lines of the conventional low-tech bike renting system where users acquired and returned the bike manually to its place of origin – in 2012. One of the original founders, Anugrah Nurrewa, saw some irregularities within the model and launched Banopolis.

With the bike-sharing service, it plans to leverage on Internet connectivity and other smart technologies such as IoT, GIS, and NFC, so that users can rent bicycle easily at any station, without requiring a physical staff to oversee the transaction.

Indonesia’s Emtek-backed O2O Startup Kudo Plans 2017 Fundraising

Indonesia-based O2O startup, Kudo, will begin talks with potential investors for a planned fundraising in between early and mid-2017, reported DEALSTREETASIA. The company said it will invite foreign and domestic investors, including existing backers such as Emtek Group, East Ventures, 500 Startups, Singapore Press Holdings, IMJ Investment Partners, and Skystar Capital to participate.

Founded in early 2015, Kudo’s unique business model provides the unbanked and and people largely unfamiliar with technology, an access to millions of products online. The company partners with firms such as BukaLapak, Lazada, Berrybenka, Telkomsel, Indosat, XL, Garuda Indonesia, Air Asia, and Lion Air, and deals in a wide range of products including fashion, mobile vouchers, tickets, until utility and other recurring payments.

Kudo works on a cash-payment system and reliance on agent-customer trust to push transactions. The company does this by appointing sales agents that the general public can visit and use to help them shop online.