Anterin, the Dark Horse between GoJek and Grab

The name Anterin in online transportation might not be as popular as GoJek and Grab. But, services offered by this startup company became a dark horse in the ride-hailing business. Its platform was officially launched earlier this year and it would be a competitor for both GoJek and Grab.

Anterin CEO and Founder, Imron Hamzah, said that his party uses a different business concept from its predecessor. If GoJek and Grab use the profit-sharing concept, Anterin uses the concept of the marketplace. Thanks to this concept, the driver will be free to determine himself.

With Anterin, passengers are free to select the driver according to their respective preferences, such as the best price, the closest driver, type of vehicle to the sex of the driver. Thus, the platform would provide the luxury of choosing which is not offered by both GoJek and Grab.

Anterin Offers Subscription-Based Option for the Drivers

“To collaborate with partners, we will give an option: subscription-based. This way, we hope to have merchants which are not offered by others,” Imron said. Subscription-based option means a subscription where the driver is required to deposit some funds to Anterin for his/her membership on the platform.

Currently, the subscription fee is set at IDR 150.000 per month. Once the drivers have subscribed, then all the income earned from passenger orders would become their property. It means Anterin will not cut the income of the drivers or something.

“So, 100% would be theirs. And they can also set their targets. Either in the morning or evening, they can still do other activities as well,” Imron said. He also explained that his party did not apply the concept of ‘burning money’ in their business scheme.

They also did not apply this concept to the development of its applications and services. “In the early years of investing, it is usually for innovation or marketing. So, it’s an investment. It’s not burning money which roughly means a waste of money,” Imron added.

He said that his party tries to monetize in various services. Even though the money-burning strategy is typically used in new startups to attract consumers so that they can offer cheaper prices, Anterin is still optimistic. They believe that they can still compete without a discount war and money burning.

Anterin Won’t Pursue High Valuations

“We prefer the problem-solving. We will not survive if we only pursue valuation since it is not necessarily sustainable. We will open other schemes besides subscriptions,” Imron said. In this case, Anterin won’t purse high valuations but lose many profits.

Anterin aims to be able to return the investment in three years or around 2022. Meanwhile, their competitors, GoJek and Grab, are both a startup which has decacorn status. Both of them have a valuation above USD 10 billion to afford the status.

In this case, GoJek is reported to have a valuation of USD 10 billion. Meanwhile, Grab owns a valuation of USD 14 billion. Yet, Anterin is optimistic to do well in the market as a dark horse between these big startups.