Qlue Startup Welcomes New Investors in June This Year

However, positive news comes from startup Qlue, a startup that offers smart city solutions with artificial intelligence (AI), and the Internet of Things (IoT) technology. Qlue application that allows residents to complain/report via smartphone, is one of its famous products.

Covid-19 pandemic in the country made the situation less enthusiastic in almost all business sectors. Business tends to be lethargic. Investors also put the brakes on funding actions.

Rama Raditya, Founder and CEO of Qlue, said the startup, which was pioneered with Andre Hutagalung in 2014, received new funding this year. This funding came from new investors and not from existing Qlue investors. Regrettably, Rama is not willing to mention who the investors are and how much they are worth.

Based on Qlue data, there have been several investors since the business entity was established in 2016. They are Prasetia Dwidharma, Merah Putih Inc., MDI Ventures (Telkom Group), and GDP Venture (Djarum Group).

Crunchbase recorded that Qlue’s total funding reached US $ 550 thousand over five rounds. However, it is outside the funding from MDI Ventures and GDP Venture whose numbers are unknown.

“This funding will be completed in June or July, now it is still in the closing process. This is a new investor, specifically a venture capital venture,” Rama said when interviewed Merdeka.com, recently. Rama is not yet ready to open the Qlue new investor profile.

The Company is “Healthy” Because It Has Recurring Income

Rama revealed, even though Qlue’s funding was almost closing, there were still many venture capital (VC) offering funds to Qlue. Some of these investors are local VCs.

The funding offered is specifically to help the handling of Covid-19 in Indonesia. One of Qlue’s partners is the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB), which heads the Republic of Indonesia Co-19 Task Force for the Acceleration of Countermeasures.

According to Rama, funding is still needed, although operationally Qlue is “healthy” because it already has operating income and recurring income so that it can actually run without new funding.

Last year, Qlue recorded business growth above 50 percent from the previous year. The number of its clients also grew 89 percent to 85 clients consisting of government agencies and private companies.

However, this funding is needed to support Qlue’s expansion plans, especially to expand its wings to the region.

The Company Will Expand Overseas This Year

This year Qlue has plans to expand to Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and so on. Rama claimed to want to bring smart city solutions to countries that lack services/solutions, as well as efforts to penetrate the smart city market of these countries.

This expansion plan is very interesting as we find new competition there. This encourages us to innovate to localize the Qlue ecosystem system in foreign markets by collaborating with the best local partners,” Rama said, as quoted by KrAsia, recently.

Qlue currently has several solution products. First, QlueApps. This smartphone application reports citizens about environmental issues, such as traffic jams, garbage, illegal parking, beggars, and so on.

Then there is Qluevision, an artificial intelligence (AI) product that utilizes CCTV systems to recognize objects or strengthen environmental security systems. This solution has the ability to recognize faces, count objects/people, and so on. Other interesting solutions include QlueWork, QlueSense, and QlueDashboard.

All of these solutions target two market segments, namely government and corporation. Qlue is currently working with partners with big names, such as Microsoft, SoftBank, Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Google, Samsung, and so on. While its local partners include Telkomsel and Indosat Ooredoo.

While there are also quite a lot of Qlue clients or users. Qlue claims the solution has been used by 25 provincial/city/district governments in Indonesia, as well as 22 regional police (Polda).