Pockets Pre-Seed Funding, Finku Enters Financial Services Market

In recent years, more and more financial recording platforms have appeared in Indonesia. Not only integrated with banking, digital wallets to other fintech platforms; the platform also leverages the latest data and technology to function as a personal finance application.

One of the platforms that has launched this year is Finku. This service was founded by three Co-Founders, namely Shyam Kalairajah, Reinaldo Tendean, and Shylla Estee Pramadhani.

Shyam and Reinaldo had previously worked at the (BCG) Boston Consulting Group, while Shylla had previously worked at Bukalapak.

According to his Linkedin page, Reinaldo mentions Finku’s vision to democratize finance for all Indonesians. He believes that Indonesian people regardless of background have the same opportunity to make the best financial decisions.

Finku has partnered with KoinWorks and Flip. In addition to providing a recorder of various activities by manual input, Finku is also able to manage user expenses with the budget feature.

Other favorite features are Timeline & Filter, Financial Target, Centralized Dashboard and Promos, discounts, and cashback. The Finku app is now available for download on Google Play and the App Store. Platforms that provide services similar to Finku in Indonesia include Moni, Sribuu, and PINA.

Receives the Pre-Seed funding 

Currently, Finku has been registered and supervised by Kominfo and the Indonesian FinTech Association. Around last August, Finku also received Pre-Seed funding from Global Founders Capital and 500 Startups.

Throughout 2021, there are 3 financial recording startups such as Finku that have received funding from investors. They are Sribuu who received funding from BEENEXT and several angel investors, while Moni received initial funding from Bukalapak Co-Founder AchmadZaky.

While PINA, before the application was launched, had pocketed initial funding from 1982 Ventures, iSeed Asia, Prasetia Dwidharma, Oberyn Capital, and a number of angel investors.

The pandemic, in particular, has accelerated the growth of financial record-keeping platforms. The habit of online shopping among the public during the pandemic has accelerated the acceleration and adoption of non-cash transactions.

BI data also recorded an increase in digital transactions which reached 201 trillion Rupiah in 2020, up 38.62% from 192 trillion Rupiah in 2019.

It was also noted that the use of electronic money reached 24 trillion Rupiah during June 2021, an increase of 60% compared to the same period in 2020.

Become One of the Finalists in Startup Studio

The Ministry of Communication and Information (Kominfo) targets to produce 150 new startups and an additional three unicorns by 2024. 

To that end, the ministry is aggressively holding acceleration programs, one of which is Studio Startup Indonesia (SSI), which has been held since 2020.

This year, the ministry again held the third batch of SSI programs by selecting 15 startupsfrom a number of sectors such as education, culinary, finance, to health.

The 15 startups that passed the selection were ArrangeKuliner, AyoBlajar, Talk, Bolu, Eateroo, Finku, FishLog, Gajiku, Imajin, Keyta, Powerbrain, KreatifHub, Sgara, Soul Parking, and Zi.Care. The Ministry of Communication and Informatics will accelerate the 15 startups from September to December 2021.

“This is to accelerate our target, print 150 startups,” said Director General of Informatics Applications (Aptika) of the Ministry of Communications and Informatics Samuel AbrijaniPangerapan in a virtual press conference on Monday (27/9).

The startup will take part in a number of training sessions, such as Founder’s Camp and 1-on-1 Coaching related to product-market-fit.

In the final stage, the startup will participate in the Milestone Day event and present its business model and achievements in front of stakeholders. “Startups will also have the opportunity to access funding from venture capital companies,” said Samuel.

In addition to targeting 150 new startups by 2024, the government is also targeting three additional new unicorns by 2024. Minister of Communications and Informatics Johnny G Plate said the target is in line with President Joko Widodo’s (Jokowi) directive, namely to encourage digital transformation.