Bank Mandiri and BRI Inject Financial Technology Startup Ayoconnect

Bank Mandiri and BRI injected capital for financial technology startup, Ayoconnect, in a Series B funding round, through a subsidiary. This start-up company received an investment of US$ 10 million or IDR 143 billion.

BRI entered through BRI Ventures, while Bank Mandiri through Mandiri Capital. Another participating investor is Patamar Capital, internet company Kakaku.com, Inc. Brama One Ventures, Finch Capital, and Amand Ventures.

In addition, there were several figures who joined individual investors or angel investors, namely Ilham Akbar Habibie, ex-Goldman Sachs Paul Bernard, Jeff Lin from iGlobe Partners, as well as a number of high-ranking officials from other financial institutions.

The presence of investors is a big support in efforts to build infrastructure that allows interoperability between various Indonesian companies providing financial services, such as financial institutions, fintech and startups.

Ayoconnect Co-Founder and CEO Jakob Rost said the fresh funds would be used to drive business growth, recruitment and product development.

Mainly, to build the application programming interface industry aka Application Programming Interface (API) in Indonesia.

“We will build an infrastructure layer that allows interoperability between various Indonesian companies providing financial services, such as financial institutions, fintech and startups,” said Jakob in a press release, Wednesday (1/9).

It is software that allows two applications to connect to each other. Integration is considered to be able to overcome low profit margins and high overhead costs for payment partners.

In addition, it can ensure standardization, network development, and successful transactions by both parties. This startup connects financial information from several data collection points, so that partners can focus on serving consumers.

Connecting Service Provider Companies with O2O Payment Partners

The startup connects companies providing electricity, water, telecommunications, educational institutions, and others, with online and offline (O2O) payment partners such as Indomaret, Pos Indonesia, and a number of financial institutions.

The company, previously known as Ayopop, offers more than 2,500 billing products from 20 categories. The company has processed more than 40 million payments through 600 billing companies and 40 payment partners per month.

Several corporations have been recruited such as DANA, LinkAja, Pos Indonesia, BRI, Permata Bank, Bukalapak, Lazada, and Pegadaian. The number of company transactions also increased by 400% during the first semester of 2020.

Mandiri Capital Indonesia CEO Eddi Danusaputro said, Ayoconnect is considered to have the same vision as the company in growing the open banking sector in the country. “They also have experience in collaborating with various leading companies,” said Eddi.

Previously, BRI Ventures CEO Nicko Widjaja revealed that bill payment technology plays an important role in various underserved vertical industries. In addition, there are great development opportunities in digitizing these sectors.

“We see good value in Ayoconnect to serve emerging ecosystems by working with billing providers, aggregators, and payment partners. Their open network will enable the acceleration of digital products in the Indonesian fintech ecosystem in the next few years,” he said.

Have More than One Hundred API Clients

Through API, the company will continue to contribute to the government’s efforts to meet the 90% financial inclusion target by 2024.

Ayoconnect was founded by Jakob together with Chiragh Kirpalani (Co-Founder and COO) and Adi Vora (Co-Founder and CTO) with a focus on building API-based solutions for bill payments and other digital products.

Ayoconnect is a financial solution for banking companies, financial institutions, digital wallets, and even e-commerce companies who want to drive the growth of their integrated financial services through ready-to-use solutions.

Currently, Ayoconnect has more than 100 API clients including leading companies in Indonesia such as Bank BRI, DANA, Bank Mandiri, Indomaret, Home Credit, Bukalapak, and Pegadaian, as well as connecting more than 1,000 companies through Ayoconnect’s API network.