Desty Merchant Solutions Platform Raises Funding

Desty, an Indonesian startup that builds a merchant solution platform, announced a new round of fundraising led by Square Peg with an undisclosed value.

This is an additional fund that has been obtained from various investors based in Asia last year, namely East Ventures, Jungle Ventures, 5Y Capital, and several other leading angel investors.

“We are delighted that Square Peg has supported us with their extensive experience investing in comparable business models around the world,” said Mulyono Xu, co-founder and CEO at Desty.

According to Mulyono, the digital economy in Indonesia is very unique with a striking fragmentation across merchant traffic, sales channels, payments and logistics.

Therefore, said Mulyono, he firmly believes that Desty’s comprehensive approach to empowering traders, will solve their problems most effectively.

Desty offers a set of digital tools to help merchants, from online sellers to F&B business entrepreneurs, to operate their businesses through a unified platform.

Piruze Soapcu, Partner at Square Peg, stated that Square Peg’s investment is not only due to the attractiveness and customer satisfaction they have seen so far, but also to the technical talent and deep market knowledge of the founders at Desty.

They have deep industry expertise and best practice experience that will help unlock economic opportunities for millions of small businesses in Indonesia and throughout Southeast Asia.

“We are excited to partner with the Desty team on its mission to bring merchants online, and help them operate smoothly in Indonesia’s increasingly congested eCommerce space,” said Piruze.

Desty’s Achievements

Desty claims to have reached almost a million users with 33 times annual growth. Over the past year, Desty has upgraded several merchant empowerment tools and proprietary technology infrastructure.

This is to offer a Link-in-Bio solution (desty.page), Online Store Builder (desty.store), Digital Order Menu system (desty.menu), and Omni Channel dashboard (desty.omni).

Additionally, Desty has seen month-on-month growth in GMV averaging 250 percent over the last quarter. Through this funding, Desty plans to use the new funding for product optimization, team expansion, and user acquisition.

Pre-series A Funding in July 2021

Previously, in July 2021, Desty announced a pre-series A funding round of US$ 3.2 million or around IDR 46 billion. This round was led by a Chinese venture capital firm that is also a major investor in Xiaomi and Kuaishou, 5Y Capital.

It also marks the 5Y Capital’s first investment in Indonesia. Other investors who participated in this funding were Fosun RZ Capital, IN Capital, January Capital, and East Ventures who were also early stage investors.

Led by Mulyono Xu (CEO) and Bill Wang (COO), Desty will use this new funding for two main purposes, such as user acquisition and team expansion.

Company Focus

“Currently our main focus is to serve sellers and users who have joined the Desty ecosystem. Our goal is only one, which is to ensure they can develop their business efficiently,” said Mulyono, Co-Founder and CEO of Desty in a statement, Tuesday (20/7/2021).

They claim the company has a team with more than fifteen years of experience in empowering sellers and digital operations.

The company believes it is an important factor in economic growth in Indonesia. We see more dynamics happening in this market and we believe the audience we serve is right, he added.

The team consists of talents who have experience working at giant technology companies such as Alibaba, Google, Facebook, Bukalapak, and Canva.

Services such as those provided by Desty target social commerce actors, either through social media or other channels. The size of the social commerce market in the country is quite large.

According to the Research and Markets report, in 2022, the market value will reach $8.6 billion and will increase to $86.7 billion in 2028.

In general, platform enablers provide services to facilitate the management of goods and transaction systems. In addition to Desty, several platforms that are trying to help social commerce players are ArrangeToko, Avana, Minin, Tokotalk, and several others.