Startup Desty Receives IDR 46 Billion Funding from Xiaomi Investors

Indonesian startup that provides social commerce solutions, Desty, announced a pre-series A funding round of US$ 3.2 million or around IDR 46 billion.

The funding round was led by 5Y Capital, a Chinese venture capital firm that is also a major investor in Xiaomi and Kuaishou.

This funding also marks 5Y Capital’s first investment in Indonesia. Other investors who participated in this funding were Fosun RZ Capital, January Capital, IN 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, namely team expansion and user acquisition.

“Currently our main focus is to serve sellers and users who have joined the 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 his statement, Tuesday (20/7/2021).

He claims the company has a team with more than 15 years of experience in empowering sellers and digital operations.

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

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

Desty’s Two Main Services

Currently, it has two main services, namely Desty Page and Desty Store. Desty Page is a landing page service that is optimized for links on social media accounts, especially Instagram.

Meanwhile, the Store provides a platform for users to easily open an online store, in order to complement the sales channel in the marketplace.

As a supporting pillar, it also founded the Desty Academy, which is the main source of information and training to help users grow their business with practical hints, tips and tricks, and case studies.

Desty provides a platform that allows today’s sellers to go digital in just five minutes. We have invested in similar companies in India and China, and these solutions create added value that has a huge impact on society.

Get to know Desty Startup

Desty itself is a digital service that helps sellers (merchants), influencers, and creators to create an online destination to market and sell their products.

Desty users can create mini sites to link in social media bios or build online stores in just a few minutes, for free.

Launched in October 2020, this startup has grown rapidly to become one of the leading providers of social commerce tools in Indonesia with hundreds of thousands of users.

5Y Capital’s VP of Investment, Hanson Hu, believes Desty can become the infrastructure for links in Southeast Asia’s e-commerce industry and contribute to creating a better ecosystem where social, content and e-commerce transactions are more closely connected.

Meanwhile, the Co-Executive President of Fosun RZ Capital, Tej Kapoor, said that with the solid team behind Desty, he believes they can transform the small and medium business (SME) industry in Indonesia and Southeast Asia.

Getting Seed Funding from East Venture in 2020

This funding will be used to accelerate product development and boost user acquisition. Desty targets to be able to attract 100,000 users in the first half of 2021.

Even though it was only launched in October 2020, Desty has managed to attract thousands of users including online brands such as Alowalo, Babycare, Notbad, influencers and content creators.

The company has also integrated with several important partners to add payment and logistics features to the Desty Store platform.

By combining global and local digital expertise, the Desty team has managed to create a product that can attract the attention of thousands of users, just a few weeks after its launch.