Tag: Indonesia

Jakarta, Indonesia – Indonesia-based culinary multi-brand startup Hangry has announced its latest equity and debt funding of US$22m, making it to US$35m in total with series A equity funding last year. The equity funding portion was led by Hangry’s new investor Journey Capital Partners, with participation from Orzon Ventures, Sassoon Investment Corporation (SassCorp), and other existing investors including Alpha JWC Ventures. Hangry plans to use the funding to drive toward business strategy expansion by acquiring other winning F&B brands, building its own brands, and maximizing nationwide expansion.

Hangry is a fast-growing culinary startup with a cloud kitchen and multi-brand concept. Hangry first opened in November 2019 and was built with a mission to provide great, easily accessible, yet affordable F&B options. Since its establishment, the company has successfully launched multiple brands with large culinary varieties, such as Moon Chicken by Hangry which is a Korean-inspired fried chicken, San Gyu by Hangry which boasts authentic Japanese cuisine, and Ayam Koplo by Hangry, a new take on various traditional chicken delicacies. 

Hangry has, in fact, already made its first acquisition recently – Accha – which delivers Indian soul food in Greater Jakarta and West Java. Established in the same year as Hangry, Accha offers Indian localized Indian cuisine at affordable price points. The company said this marks its invite to other winning F&B brands to join the company and build and expand the brands together.

“We always aspire to build brands with gourmet-quality dishes that can be enjoyed around the world. Originating from Indonesia, Hangry will not only build its own brand but also acquire the other winning F&B brands,” said Hangry Co-founder and CEO Abraham Viktor. 

Viktor shared that adding brands has always been in the pipeline of the company with multi-brand and multi-channel as its core concept. In addition to that, he also hinted at their ambitious global plans. 

“Hangry has successfully built the business focus in the delivery service. Not stopping there, we want to present our winning brands to people globally, making their moments delightful. That’s why we also acquire the other F&B brands to have multiple winning brands, so we can achieve the vision faster as well as to cater [to] different tastes and interests,” said Viktor.

Subsequent to the fundraising process, Hangry’s target expansion is region-wide starting from 2024. The company said the strategy will include building more brands that are distinctive yet able to serve a wide range of customer targets. 

From 2019 to date, Hangry has opened more than 70 outlets. With Accha joining the house, this brings their managed brands to five. 

Indonesia – DBS Foundation, an endeavour from DBS Bank to make a great impact in addressing Asia’s evolving social needs, has launched a new grant programme to support SMEs looking to kickstart their transition towards becoming more sustainable businesses. 

This new programme is an extension of the DBS Foundation’s ongoing support for social enterprises (SEs), as it endeavours to foster the growth of businesses-for-impact, which is defined as businesses with dual bottom lines of profit and impact, regardless of their stage of growth.

The new grant programme is in search of SMEs, which are incorporated in Indonesia, as well as in Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and India, with innovative sustainability solutions. Their proposals should address at least one of the following areas, namely reducing energy consumption, reducing waste, or sustainable supply chains.

The grant awardees will be receiving a grant amount of up to IDR1,051,405,196, a structured mentorship and advisory support, where DBS Foundation and the DBS SME Banking team will work with each SME awardee to map out key milestones and impact outcomes across a two-year horizon, and support from broader DBS franchise to help promising grant awardees to scale their businesses, including a range of working capital, supply chain financing, and digital transformation solutions.

Joyce Tee, the group head of SME banking at DBS and the board member of DBS Foundation, shared that while their engagement with SME owners has revealed their keen interest in adopting more sustainable business models, they are often caught up with operational matters and may lack the bandwidth or resources to begin. 

“This is a gap that the DBS Foundation aims to fill with the new SME Grant Programme, which will help SMEs take their first step towards transforming into businesses for impact. Beyond grant funding, DBS will also avail our suite of sustainable financing solutions, ecosystem platforms and advisory services to help the most promising SME awardees accelerate their transformation efforts,” said Tee.

Singapore – Indonesia and Singapore have recently reaffirmed their commitment to discuss collaborations on data governance, digital talent and the digital transformation of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in their respective countries.

Held during the 8th Information and Communications Joint Committee (ICJC) Meeting on Digital Cooperation last April 7. Present during the meeting were Joseph Leong, permanent secretary of the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) of Singapore; and Mira Tayyiba, secretary general of the Ministry of Communications and Informatics (KOMINFO) of Indonesia.

During the joint meeting, they discussed digital transformation efforts in their respective countries, and explored areas where bilateral digital cooperation could advance mutual interests, including initiatives to support the digitalisation of businesses and start-ups.

Leong said, “The ICJC Meeting is an important platform for the bilateral cooperation between Singapore and Indonesia. Digital transformation is increasingly important in helping our people and businesses seize new opportunities and markets. The ICJC has given us the opportunity to foster a closer working relationship in bilateral digital cooperation, which will benefit our people and businesses, and accelerate our post-pandemic recovery.”

Meanwhile, Tayyiba commented, “I hope we can share the same vision in ICJC while continuing initiatives and cooperation between our neighbouring countries. It is important to nurture our digital future by focusing our effort on human centric approach by providing equal and accessible connectivity, ensuring the security and protection of data, equipping the society with the necessary skills in this era of digital transformation, and creating a fair playing field for all actors within the digital ecosystem.”

She added, “The ICJC meeting can be utilised not only as a means to share information and best practices, but also to initiate new cooperation and other initiatives that can benefit both countries.”

Jakarta, Indonesia – Indonesia has continued to crack down on pirated and illegal streaming sites, now amounting to 3,500 of them taken down since 2019, according to the latest data from the Coalition Against Piracy (CAP) of the Asia Video Industry Association (AVIA).

The data also showed traffic to all pirate sites in Indonesia was down by 75% as of January this year compared to when tracking first started in September 2019.

Matthew Cheetham, general manager at CAP, said, “Indonesia is leading the way when it comes to regulatory site blocking in the Asia Pacific region, if not the world, and the Indonesian government is to be congratulated for the strong stance they have taken in this area. Local industry is clearly benefiting from the actions, as are consumers who are not only being directed towards legitimate content, but in being blocked from accessing pirate sites, they are also protected from the serious risks that previous CAP studies shows are inherent in accessing pirate sites.”

The latest data also mirrors the latest survey from YouGov, which states that more than 50% of Indonesian consumers say that they have stopped or rarely access pirate services as a result of blocking. More importantly, 76% of Indonesian consumers say they are accessing more legal content and pirating less, and 26% say they have subscribed to legitimate sources as a result of illegal streaming sites being blocked.

Local movie producer Edwin Nazir, the chairman of Asosiasi Produser Film Indonesia (APROFI) was greatly encouraged by the ongoing blocking efforts and the positive traffic data. 

“It is through collective consciousness and continuous effort that we can stand against piracy and bring the Indonesian film industry forward,” said Nazir.

Singapore – Global investing platform Gotrade has expanded to Indonesia to enable Indonesian users to invest as little as US$1 in the likes of Tesla, Apple, and Netflix, amongst others, on a commission-free platform.

According to Gotrade, it has picked Indonesia as the first market to launch a local version of the platform because it was there that the problem seemed most pressing with mutual fund fees frequently exceeding 5%. Interestingly, local brokers are not permitted to offer foreign securities within the country, but are permitted to offer derivatives of foreign securities. 

With this in mind, Gotrade has partnered with Valbury Asia Futures, the Jakarta Futures Exchange, and the Futures Clearing House of Indonesia – all regulated by Bappebti, the derivatives regulator in Indonesia, to design a fully backed derivative that gives the end-users market access to U.S. stocks.

The teams at Gotrade, Valbury, the Jakarta Futures Exchange and Kliring Berjangka Indonesia worked closely with local regulators to enable dollar-based investing and nine-decimal places fractional share investing. For instance, if Tesla is trading at US$1,000/share, user can buy 1/1,000th of a Tesla share for US$1.

Andrew Haryono, Gotrade’s co-founder Andrew Haryono, noted that their team is on a mission to completely reinvent investing for millions of Indonesians. 

” I am thrilled to be a part of the team at Gotrade and am excited to be a part of the next phase of the company’s hypergrowth,” said Haryono.

Just recently, Gotrade has also raised US$15.5m in a Series A round led by Velocity Capital Fintech Ventures. This newly secure fund will help the platform grow its team of 40 and launch localised versions of its product in various markets, starting with the Southeast Asia region.

Jakarta, Indonesia – Gojek’s interactive live streaming platform GoPlay has launched the GoPlay Creator Fund programme, aimed at opening access to sustainable income for creators and encouraging the growth of the creator economy in Indonesia. 

With more than US$1m, the programme provides creators with the opportunity to get a monthly bonus with an instant and seamless disbursement process, the potential for increased virtual gifts, training, and special benefits to increase the scale of their live show program.

Open to all creators in Indonesia from various genres, including new creators who don’t have viewers and followers yet, the GoPlay Creator Fund programme will run throughout 2022. Through the instant withdrawal feature that GoPlay has previously launched, creators can enjoy a speed fund disbursement process after their live show ends. This programme is expected to increase the GoPlay content creator development programme’s scale.

With terms and conditions applied, each creator will get a monthly bonus amount correlated with live stream frequency on GoPlay, which is the number of viewers, and how creators can find true fans from their audience community. To support transparency and innovation, creators will also receive monthly performance reports sent directly to each creator and access to instant withdrawals every month or when the show ends. 

In addition, GoPlay will hold various special missions and live streaming content creation training for all creators to ensure the quality and interactivity of their content and bring all creators closer to the audience.

Edy Sulistyo, GoPlay’s CEO, said that through the GoPlay Creator Fund, GoPlay is committed to supporting the livelihood of Indonesia’s content creators to earn a sustainable income, and this programme also aligns with Gojek’s mission to provide social impact for the ecosystem.

“Unlike other platforms, from the beginning, GoPlay has also provided an instant withdrawal feature for content creators where they have access to direct disbursement of their income instantly and seamlessly in minutes. Through GoPlay, new content creators can fully focus on creating positive content with the full support of GoPlay’s various features,” added Sulistyo

Meanwhile, Martinus Faisal, GoPlay’s CSO, shared that since the first time the GoPlay live stream service arrived, new creators have had the opportunity to earn revenue directly from the audience through the virtual gift feature without certain minimum criteria. 

“Through the GoPlay Creator Fund, not only creators can access monthly bonuses but, their virtual gifts from their true fans will potentially increase, along with the intimacy of creators to their true fans, even to the other potential true fans,” said Faisal.

Besides monthly bonuses and increased virtual gifts, creators have the opportunity to get various benefits in expanding the scale of the live show programme. Some of these advantages include promotion and paid advertising support on various GoPlay owned media channels, a special edition virtual gift with a unique design at a live show hosted by the creator, and the opportunity to use GoPlay recording studio in Jakarta for live streaming needs.

Moreover, creators can also have the opportunity to appear in regular GoPlay live performances, get sponsorship from brand partners facilitated by GoPlay, and have special mentorship from the GoPlay team.

Jakarta, Indonesia – Digital-first agency Lion & Lion has been appointed as the regional digital and social partner for Mars Wrigley’s Doublemint brand, which will be driven by Lion & Lion Indonesia, covering several key markets for the brand in SEA, namely Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines. 

In line with the brand’s strategy for the region, Lion & Lion will be responsible for the development and execution of a new activation for Doublemint that will serve to heighten brand awareness and conversion amidst the impact of COVID-19. 

Called ‘The Freshest Lick’, the new activation aims to spread Doublemint’s brand of freshness on digital and social by gamifying the act of sharing gum and mints with friends. 

Michael Panjaito, Lion & Lion Indonesia’s creative group head, shared that to expand their presence and resonate with their post-pandemic gen-z audience on a deeper level, they created a digital brand experience hinging on moments of togetherness with a Play-to-Earn format. 

“The more Doublemint gum players share with their friends in ‘The Freshest Flick’, the fresher rewards they earn together, thus creating a purposeful social connection across a virtual space,” said Panjaito.

Meanwhile, Cheelip Ong, Lion & Lion’s regional chief creative officer, noted that as a creatively-driven, digital-first micro-network with their footprints across SEA, they were able to effectively launch the gamification experience with entertaining localised content for Doublemint across Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand.

“We thank the client for trusting our ideas and approach in creating a digital experience that makes the sharing of virtual mints possible,” said Ong.

Samuel Fung, Mars Wrigley’s brand manager for Asia, commented, “We are delighted to work with Lion & Lion as our digital and social partner as their fresh approach to driving relevance for our brand aligns perfectly with our objective of making everyday moments more meaningful. We’re also excited to see the campaign come to life and how consumers can have an immersive experience on The Freshest Flick website.”

In February 2022, Lion & Lion has also been appointed as the digital and social media marketing partner of ASEAN fintech company BigPay, which is under AirAsia, for its Malaysia and Singapore markets.

Jakarta, Indonesia – Indonesia is fastly moving towards being a growing mobile market globally, with the latest data from app analytics company data.ai unveiling that Indonesians have spent 156 billion hours on mobile during 2021. In addition, the report also noted that new app downloads in Indonesia surpassed 7.3 billion in 2021, a 33% increase from pre-pandemic levels in 2019.

Total time spent among the top 20 video streaming apps surpassed 27 billion hours in Indonesia, up by 93% since 2019, the highest percent increase among all markets analysed and nearly three times the growth rate worldwide. Top apps included global brands such as YouTube, MX Player, Netflix, YouTube Kids and Viu. And for Indonesia-based Vidio, time spent surpassed 174 million hours, landing it at number 8 in 2021.

In addition, shopping apps were another category that saw tremendous growth in total time spent in Indonesia. Since 2019, time spent on retail apps rose from 2 billion to nearly 5.6 billion in 2021, a 180% increase. The pandemic accelerated the momentum as the 2-year growth rate for Indonesia was the 6th highest in the world. In fact, even compared to 2020, time spent in retail apps in Indonesia saw a 52% increase YoY — growing 2.9x faster than the global market at 18% YoY. 

“It is clear that Indonesia is a rapidly growing retail market, and publishers should take note of consumer trends, demographic preferences and cultural differences to succeed in this mobile-first market,” the company said in a press statement.

The report noted that the top 4 shopping apps by breakout downloads in Indonesia, namely Akulaku, MyPoin, Tokopedia and Mitra Bukalapak were all homegrown apps, signalling a potential opportunity for local app publishers as well as marketers looking to craft campaigns and partnerships relevant to their local audience.

Singapore – Digital experience platform Magnolia has announced that it is opening up a new office in Jakarta, Indonesia as part of the company’s stride to deepen its presence in the Asia-Pacific region. The announcement follows after the platform has been recognised once more at the 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms as a ‘Visionary’.

According to the company, they will be dedicating 30% of their operational budget to the local Indonesian office and 40% of their marketing budget for this market. Furthermore, they have four staff hired for Indonesia looking after technology, solutions and business development.

Don Lee, managing director for APAC at Magnolia, said, “Setting up operations in Indonesia was part of our plans back in early 2021 as this is a market that will require highly localised resources and consultancy, the Magnolia way. With the new office, we believe it will open up major opportunities for Magnolia and customers as more brands in Indonesia are evaluating digital tools that help them bolt on, and fully leverage, their expanding marketing ecosystems.”

Speaking about the challenges the company sees in the Indonesian market, they said that the DXP landscape is still in its infancy stage where there is a lack of awareness of DXP and the enormous business benefits it can bring.

“Many companies in Indonesia are either looking for a simple CMS, or overpaying for a complex, monolithic platform and we believe Magnolia fits perfectly into the sweet spot for what Indonesian brands look for – scalable, future-proof technology with Asian-centric pricing. Digital usage is uneven within and among various business sectors, with some departments more advanced than the others and the brand’s digital strategy can be compromised holistically,” the company explained.

This sentiment echoes Lee’s aspirations to make the DXP landscape more organic and customised to the client’s needs, as well as giving clients the ability to control their budget and strategy–which he explained to MARKETECH APAC during an episode for MARKETECH Spotlight.

“From there, they should aim to build a modular, organic DXP which has the capability to help them achieve their DX goals faster as they observe results. Investing in a composable DXP is key as it allows them to integrate with new or legacy martech functions seamlessly,” he said during the Spotlight interview.

Meanwhile, speaking about Magnolia’s placement, Lee highlighted Magnolia’s commitment to its customers. 

“It is an incredible honour for Magnolia to be recognised in the Visionary quadrant this year. We have been recognised in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for the second year in a row, a testament to our constant commitment to our customers and helping them transform the performance and attractiveness of their digital interactions with their customers,” he said.

To coincide with the opening, Magnolia has also launched its first Indonesian website to meet the growing demands for best-of-breeds enterprise CMS and composable DXP solutions in the region.

Magnolia has offices in APAC located in Singapore, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Bangkok, and Ho Chi Minh. 

Bandung, Indonesia – Indonesia-based social commerce platform Evermos has announced its commitment to support the Government in accelerating the transformation of an inclusive and sustainable digital economy. 

Supported by a technology-based platform, Evermos has created an enabling ecosystem for SMEs, local brands, and end consumers through the presence of resellers beyond Tier 1 cities. By the spirit of Ekonomi Gotong Royong, which in English translates to Collaborative Economy, Evermos believes that an inclusive economy is more feasible to realize if supported by comprehensive and sustainable facilities, especially from the private sector, that are accessible for all segments of the society.

In line with the intergovernmental forum G20 Presidency that will be held in 2022 in Indonesia, Evermos reaffirms its commitment to the three areas, which are Digital Economy Transformation, Unemployment Rate Alleviation and Job Creation, and Women Empowerment in the Workplace and Communities. 

These points are manifested in Evermos’ daily products and services, through an Evermos application that connects resellers, SMEs, and local brands, with end consumers. In addition to the application, Evermos also provides various facilities, tools, and training for resellers and SMEs to foster their skills and knowledge hence it can be much easier for them to start or grow their businesses. 

During the press conference of Evermos’ brand new identity launch on 15 March 2022, Ghufron Mustaqim, Evermos’ co-founder and CEO, explained that the platform application has been working for further improvements and innovations to make sure that even more people can easily join as resellers; it is indirectly stated they actively participate in supporting the growth of SMEs and local brands. 

“We have been preparing certain innovations to ensure that the journey for people to become a reseller will be much easier and feasible for literally everybody, not only those who live in Tier 1 cities but also for all grassroots communities. Supported by humanist technology, nowadays everyone will have an equal opportunity to chase over a more prosperous life and be financially independent. This is what makes Evermos different and a lot more competitive compared to other social commerce,” he said.

Mustaqim further shared that SMEs and local brands are within Evermos’ ecosystem, hence they have the access to connect them to the network of resellers, which currently accounts for more than 500,000 resellers across Indonesia’s regions. 

“Supported by an inclusive ecosystem for resellers, SMEs, and consumers, we wish that it can enable us to support the government to wider job opportunities and further reduce the unemployment rate,” added Mustaqim.

Meanwhile, Sandiaga Uno, the Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy, noted that he is thrilled to hear about Evermos’ passion and vision for the future of an inclusive digital economy. 

“I genuinely wish that Evermos will continue to further contribute to a more sustainable creative economy industry in Indonesia,” said Uno.