Indonesia’s Startup Studio Alumni achieves over US$22.7 mil funding

• To date, US$22.7 million in funding have been channeled
• Each batch sees 30%-40% receive seed/pre-seed capital

Startup Studio Indonesia (SSI), a government-initiated incubation program for early-stage startups, officially opened registration for its Batch 5 programme in May.

The intensive programme, developed under the ministry of communications and informatics (Kominfo) aims to assist and advance Indonesia’s early-stage digital startups to achieve product market fit (PMF), Kominfo said in a statement.

Spanning four months, participants are mentored by renowned startup founders, C-levels, and practitioners from diverse local and multinational companies, SSI noted.

These included Moses Lo (co-founder and CEO of Xendit), Gibran Huzaifah (founder and CEO of eFishery), Dimas Harry Priawan (co-founder and CEO of Dekoruma), and many more from Gojek, Tiket.com, Halodoc, and HappyFresh.

Kominfo said that it has supported 65 startups alumnis in total to achieve promising results after graduating the programme. 

It reported that a total of US$22.7 million (RM100 million) in funding have been channeled into the alumni and claimed that each batch has consistently seen between 30% and 40% of participants receive seed/pre-seed capital following completion.

Semuel Abrijani Pangerapan, director general of Informatics Applications, Kominfo said, “We are very proud to see the achievements of the SSI alumni. Not limited to funding, what’s more important is that these early-stage startups can develop and have an increasingly significant impact on Indonesia’s economy and quality of life.

“At Kominfo, we are committed to continue empowering Indonesian startups to become agile, solutive, and able to reach their PMF, through SSI and other targeted programs," he added 

Verihubs, a verification platform in Indonesia and former participant of SSI said its participation in the programme led to the company launching new products including ‘Know Your Business’ to streamline the credit verification process, and ‘Know Your Employee’, a solution to support the pre-screening of potential new employees. 

Its chief technology officer and co-founder, Williem, said, "“I was able to gain insight not widely known or previously shared publicly through their experiences, which helped me when building my own company.”

Meanwhile, edutech startup, LingoTalk, noted that having participated in the programme, it progressed through two funding stages from well-known investors including Kistech Pte Ltd, Iterative Capital, and Eduspaze by Spaze Ventures. 

Its CEO, Andre Benito said, “Currently, our PMF is on the LingoJunior product, which targets kindergarten and elementary school students with a 5% percent growth in acquisition rate per week.

Throughout 2022, we also aim to increase collaboration with 59% percent of the total elementary schools in Indonesia,” he said.

Kominfo said these are among the examples of startups who have benefited from the SSI program and have achieved growth, direction, experience and tangible results.

Kominfo said it aimed to strengthen and complement the digital startup empowerment program launched by Kominfo, including the 1,000 Digital Startup Movement and Hub.id. 

Through these programs, the ministry targets to produce 150 digital startups by 2024 with the ability to scale in terms of user numbers, revenue, employment, and VC funding, it said.