Deepening the Business Focus of OCTOPUS, the Recycling Aggregator Platform

Implementing a technology-based circular economy ecosystem, OCTOPUS is here as an aggregator platform that can be used by related industries to get recycled waste from scavengers and collectors. This service has started its operations in tier 2 and 3 cities.

It is noted that their services have reached almost 200 thousand users spread across five major cities in Indonesia, namely Jakarta, South Tangerang, Bandung, Bali, and Makassar.

OCTOPUS has also worked with more than 1,700 waste banks and 14,600 trained and verified scavengers (they call them “sustainers”).

OCTOPUS Co-Founder & CEO Moehammad Ichsan said that the problem of recycling in Indonesia has great potential. However, the large demand from the industry cannot be matched with the existing supply.

Even though there are currently a large number of scavengers and collectors in various locations, the many layers or sales processes that must be passed by the collectors make it difficult for them to be able to sell directly.

“From the perspective of conservationists and collectors, we also see that there are still trust issues between them. For this reason, OCTOPUS wants to become a platform that can provide standardization for sales prices to the appropriate volume between collectors and conservationists,” said Ichsan.

In order to cut the layers that are claimed to be too layered to make it difficult for the industry to get the goods directly, OCTOPUS provides an opportunity for collectors to be able to sell all the recycled goods they have obtained from the conservators directly to the industry.

OCTOPUS can also provide recommendations to collectors according to the scale of their business. For collectors who are still on a small scale, it is advisable to focus on items such as plastic.

Meanwhile, those who are already in the middle category can focus on cardboard items. And for collectors who fall into the big category, they can focus on certain items such as electronic recycling.

Develop Apps and Dashboard

In order for the goal to achieve the right target while at the same time getting a sustainable profit, OCTOPUS then developed 3 applications that can be used by conservationists, collectors, and consumers.

Meanwhile, for brands to FMCG companies who want to take advantage of data obtained from conservationists in various consumer locations, they also provide data processing.

For now, the monetization strategy being implemented is B2B. OCTOPUS is still focused on meeting industry demands through data processing dashboards.

However, to help conservationists get the opportunity to directly pick up recycled waste from consumers, an application has also been prepared that can be used by conservationists and consumers on-demand.

Rewards received by consumers will be in the form of points that can be exchanged for purchasing credit, electricity tokens, and purchasing F&B products. As a graduate of Grab Velocity Ventures (GVV) Batch 4, OCTOPUS also offers point exchange for existing services at Grab such as GrabBike, GrabMart, and others.

In addition, for conservationists who manage to pick up recycled waste directly to consumers’ homes, they will be given recommendations on where to sell goods or relevant collectors.

So they can get more profit by selling to more than one collector. Together with the provincial government. DKI, OCTOPUS have also carried out strategic collaborations to be able to utilize the waste bank managed by the local government.

This includes the establishment of OCTOPOINT as part of the OCTOPUS ecosystem at M Bloc Space, South Jakarta. Now Jakartans can access this free service to sort, collect and manage their household waste.

Initial funding from Openspace Ventures

From the very beginning, OCTOPUS’s mission was to help manufacturers track, sort, and collect post-consumer products.

In line with the slogan ‘Solution for Your Recycle’, the OCTOPUS application makes it easy for users to manage waste, so that it becomes one of the solutions to encourage people to dispose used goods and waste properly.

Until now, OCTOPUS is still the first player to provide this service. For this reason, Openspace Ventures finally agreed to provide seed funding.

Even though it claims that it still has enough runways and has already made a profit, the company still has plans to do the next stage of fundraising.