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Indonesian AI startup, Eureka.ai Closes US$20m Series B Round

  • Strengthen presence in existing markets and support global expansion
  • Platform organizes mobile data to deliver actionable intelligence at scale

Eureka describes the capture of mobile data by telcos as "The greatest depository of human activity that has ever existed."

Eureka, an AI enterprise software company which counts a credit score system as its flagship product and claims a collective mobile subscriber base of over a billion customers, announced on Tues that it had closed its Series B fundraising round of US$20 million (RM83 million). Established in 2017 by a former head of McKinsey & Co’s Indonesian office, Benjamin Soemartopo, the startup leverages on AI and telco analytics to power mobile operator and enterprise partnerships. Specifically, it unlocks the data that telcos hold, enabling the monetisation of this data through products and services that deliver insights, risk scoring and customer engagement.

In support of the company’s global expansion, the round was co-led by investors from around the world: Apis Partners (headquartered in London), Gobi Partners (headquartered in Kuala Lumpur), the Riyad TAQNIA Fund (headquartered in Riyadh) and MEC Ventures (headquartered in Beijing and Bahrain).  Other investors that participated included SG Innovate, GDP Ventures, Pacific Bridge and Cianna Capital.  They join existing investors in the company that include Japan’s Softbank, Czech Republic’s PPF Home Credit, and Indonesia’s East Ventures.

There is no publicly available information about the investments by these three earlier investors as founder and CEO Benjamin tells DNA that it choose to not disclose them. Eureka was started in Indonesia but has its investment holding company located in Singapore. However Ben tells DNA that Eureka's operations are spread across different countries with its data science team in Singapore while its technology leadership is based out of Seattle where its CTO Tarek Najm resides, having spent 15 years with Microsoft and leaving with the honorific, Technical Fellow.

Indonesian AI startup, Eureka.ai Closes US$20m Series B Round Benjamin (pic, left), said, “We are excited to have a leading global group of institutional investors join us in our mission to help mobile operators partner with enterprises.  Mobile operators provide the infrastructure for the digital economy, and partnerships with enterprises will enable both to better serve their customers.  Our new investment partners will help us both deliver in our current markets, and complete our global footprint.”

Helmed by a team of experienced senior executives who have held regional and global leadership roles in the past, Eureka has built a proprietary AI enterprise software platform, Spectrum, that organizes mobile telecom data to deliver actionable intelligence. 

It enables enterprises in industries including banking, insurance, transportation, and FMCG to partner with mobile operators to deliver better services to their customers and acquire millions more.  At present, Eureka is deploying with operators across Southeast Asia, India, and the Middle East with a collective mobile subscriber base of over one billion customers; it is now expanding into Europe and the United States.

It has received some accolades for its products in 2019 with the World Economic Forum recognising it as a Technology Pioneer. It was also one of 40 startups, chosen from a pool of 2,000 companies as a Mastercard Start Path partner.

Udayan Goyal, Apis Managing Partner, commented, “We are really excited to be investing in Eureka. Mobile operators today face twin pressure from pricing pressure and rising costs, whilst facing a shortage of data scientists. By leveraging products on Eureka’s platform, enterprise clients of mobile operators can offer more relevant and personalized services to their customers.”

Dan Chong (pic, below), Gobi Partners’ Managing Director of ASEAN, said, “At Gobi, we are always seeking out companies that are connecting people, enterprises, and countries with their business. Eureka’s innovative platform with its global reach fits our strategy of bridging and investing in underserved markets, particularly those that lie in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.” 

Indonesian AI startup, Eureka.ai Closes US$20m Series B Round “We are very excited to bring Eureka to the Middle East,” said RTF Vice President, Ivo Detelinov.  “Our investment, along with our GCC-wide network, will help Eureka roll out its flagship credit score product across the region. This would create untapped revenue streams for financial institutions and provide financial products to customers who previously were unable to access them due to the lack of a credit score.”

“By mining alternative data sources that are currently vastly underutilized, we believe Eureka provides a critical layer of infrastructure that will enable the optimized digitization of financial services and advertising in the Middle East.” said Ben Harburg, Co-Managing Partner, MEC Ventures.

 
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