Ayoconnect Received Pre-series B Funding Worth IDR 72 Billion

Indonesian financial technology company Ayoconnect announced that it received Pre-Series B funding of USD 5 million or around IDR 72 billion. Ayoconnect, as a B2B fintech company, acts as a liaison between billing companies (electricity/water companies, telecommunications, educational institutions, etc.) and online and offline payment partners.

Involved in this funding round are BRI Ventures, Kakaku.com, Inc., and Brama One Ventures. Early investors such as Finch Capital and Amand Ventures are also taking part in this funding round. Other investors are Strive and AC Ventures.

“Getting the right strategic investor is crucial for our Pre-Series B funding. We expect a solid partnership with our previous investors and new investors, which is in line with Ayoconnect’s vision to shape Indonesia’s billing ecosystem into a centralized network,” said the co-founder & CEO at Ayoconnect, Jakob Rost in a written statement.

Jakob emphasized that this funding will be used for technology investment and partnership network development in order to build a trusted, secure, and fast digital bill payment infrastructure.

Besides, said Jakob, the Indonesian bill payment industry is currently still predominantly offline, separate, and manual and that is what drives companies to offer solutions. “Ayoconnect is here with the Open Bill Network to build and run hundreds of integrations,” said Jakob.

The Company will Encourage Financial Inclusion in Indonesia

Regarding the company’s future plans, co-founder & COO at Ayoconnect, Chiragh Kirpalani said online bill payments played an important role during the Covid-19 pandemic as consumer preferences shifted to digitization.

“Ayoconnect will remain focused on paying bills and providing solutions with added value together with our partners. One of our solutions is a Billing Reminder that helps our partners, such as Bank Mandiri Card Division and other financial institutions, conduct auto-debits for bill payments,” Chiragh said.

Meanwhile, the CEO of BRI Ventures, Nicko Widjaja welcomed the collaboration with Ayoconnect as an investor and partner. “Bill payment technology plays an important role in various vertical industries that are currently unserved, and there are great opportunities for development in digitizing these sectors,” said Nicko.

Ayoconnect and its partners aim to promote financial inclusion in Indonesia. Indonesian society is classified as still dependent on cash because many consumers do not have bank accounts.

With the idea of ​​building an Open Bill Network, Ayoconnect offers a “One API” solution that allows Billing Companies to expand their payment points with minimum effort, while Payment Partners have direct access to 2,500 billing products.

Has Processed more than 40 Million Payments

Ayoconnect is a fintech with a Business to Business (B2B) model. This startup connects electricity, water, telecommunication service providers, educational institutions, and others, with online and offline payment partners such as Indomaret, Pos Indonesia, and a number of financial institutions.

The company, formerly called Ayopop, offered more than 2,500 billing products from 20 categories. The additional capital will be used to build the largest open bill network in Indonesia.

That way, Ayoconnect can offer a ‘one Application Programming Interface (API)’ solution. API is software that allows two applications to connect to each other. The integration is considered to be able to overcome the low-profit margins and high overhead costs for payment partners.

It can ensure standardization, network development, and transaction success by both parties. Ayoconnect processed more than 40 million payments through 600 billing companies and 40 payment partners per month. Some of the corporations that were hooked up were DANA, LinkAja, Pos Indonesia, BRI, Bank Permata, Bukalapak, Lazada, and Pegadaian.

The number of company transactions was also recorded to have increased by 400% during the first semester of 2020. “Pre-Series B funding will be used for investment in technology and development of partnership networks,” said Jakob.