Mandiri Capital Still Eyeing 4 New Startups

PT Mandiri Capital Indonesia remains on the initial target of disbursing funds of up to more than IDR 100 billion to add to the ranks of startups into its portfolio.

Mandiri Capital President Director Eddi Danusaputro explained that although the country was entering a period of the Covid-19 pandemic spike and re-implementing social restrictions or PPKM, not all startups were affected, some of them were gaining momentum.

“The pandemic has not changed our way too much, because we are long-term investors. MCI itself still projects that this year there will be 3 to 4 new investments,” he said, Tuesday (20/7/2021).

Eddi had mentioned that his party had prepared ‘two bags’ ahead of time. First, to continue to support the turnover of startups in the portfolio or follow-on funding of up to IDR 50 billion.

Second, the pocket for new startups is around IDR 50-70 billion, especially those who are in the Pre-Series A stage and above, and have a suitability and usefulness value with MCI’s parent ecosystem, PT Bank Mandiri (Persero) Tbk. (BMRI).

“If there is something good, as long as the technology and products can be used in the Mandiri Group Ecosystem, it could be a target,” he said.

For example, MCI recently participated in the Series G investment round of the e-commerce platform Bukalapak, along with Microsoft, Standard Chartered, and BRI Ventures in the range of April 2021.

Mandiri Group sees the potential to be able to participate in accommodating the 13.5 million online and offline merchant ecosystem, ‘Mitra Bukalapak’, as well as strengthening several existing partnerships between the two parties in the products of BukaRumah, BukaReksa, BukaMotor, and BukaMobil.

In addition, MCI in 2020 was involved in funding a Series A startup, namely for a software as a service (SaaS) platform titled iSeller.

By injecting funds into startups engaged in cash flow bookkeeping and digital cashier services or omnichannel point of sales (PoS), it is hoped that the Mandiri Group’s new ecosystem potential will be opened to the iSeller target market, including new retail businesses, restaurants, F&B, services, and lifestyles.

Seeing Funding Potential for some Startups

Eddi admitted that he is exploring the potential to fund several startups that have introduced themselves to MCI, as well as looking for an Insurtech platform that has the characteristics of new innovations in business processes or insurance products.

“Indeed, the majority of our new investments are in Series A and B, once in Pre-Series A. There are also late stages such as Bukalapak and Gojek. But apart from that, this year we will continue to follow on funding to existing investees,” he added.

For your information, how many popular startups are in the MCI portfolio, including payment fintech and state-owned digital wallet LinkAja, digital signature PrivyID, and several big names in peer-to-peer (P2P) lending fintech players, namely Amartha, KoinWorks, Investree , and Crowde.

Mandiri Capital has also invested in other digital cashier platforms besides iSeller, namely Yokke, financial planning Halofina, as well as several payment gateways such as PTEN, Cashlez, as well as the SaaS platform for digital bookkeeping and accounting services for SMEs, Mekari.

Investment in New Startups is Still High

Venture capital investment into potential startup companies that are still in their early stages, is an effort to stir up the innovations of the founders, which is expected to have a real impact on the national economy in the future.

Chairman of the Association of Venture Capital for Indonesian Startups (Amvesindo) Jefri R. Sirait explained that venture capital also plays a role in opening up networks for new ecosystems that facilitate the development of startup companies.

Jefri encourages startups in the Pre-Seed, Seed Stage, Pre-Series A, to Series A stages that are interested in obtaining venture capital funding in the pandemic era to prepare for resilience.

In addition, to ensure that the innovations carried out are in accordance with the conditions of the pandemic and the transition period, as well as preparing themselves to collaborate with the ecosystem.