Achmad Zaky's New Investment Firm Init-6, Debuts with Seed Funding for Eduka

Bukalapak's Co-founder and Founding Partner Init-6, Achmad Zaky announced the new investment firm focused on investment to early-stage startups. Bukalapak's Co-founder, Nugroho Herucahyono also participated as Partner after resigned as the CTO. Init-6 debuts with its first investment to the edtech platform Eduka.

Zaky, after officially steps down as Bukalapak's CEO earlier this year said the Covid-19 pandemic has initiated the new managed fund. Init-6 is a UNIX command that means reboot or reset. According to Zaky, Covid-19 requires humans to live in a new kind of lifestyle  (or known as "new normal"). They believe that we need to reboot or reset our way of life.

Prior to this, after no longer active in Bukalapak, Zaky is said to focus on foundations engaged in science and education, entrepreneurship, impact investment, and research.

To date, Zaky said the managed funds came from General Partners, none of them were from Limited Partners. Even so, he did not want to elaborate on this matter further, including how much funds under management at this time.

Init-6 will focus on investing in early-stage startups without specific sector preferences. "[The thing is] As long as it is tech-driven and backed with great founders," Zaky said.

Investment on Eduka

Eduka is Init-6's first startup investment. This educational technology platform was initiated by students and alumni of the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB). Eduka was built as a practice platform (try out) for students to UTBK and USM at various universities. This platform claims to have 800 thousand registered users and 180 thousand active students every month.

Zaky said Eduka reminded him of his experience 10 years ago when building Bukalapak. The company has now become one of the unicorns in Indonesia.

He said, "When we first met the Eduka founders, we were very impressed with their achievements. They built [this platform] from scratch, without capital. [...] We hope they can graduate quickly this year and develop Eduka even faster. Education is a big pie [opportunity] and we believe Eduka can have a better impact on the Indonesian education system. "

"We built the Eduka System because we believe students in Indonesia have good academic potential if trained properly. Unfortunately, we know that there are many students who only focus on memorizing a theory without understanding its application. This makes it limited to the ability to solve complex problems. We want to unlock their potential by providing High Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) exercises that are easy to apply and connect with everyday life so that they are accustomed to facing complex problems. With the help of technology, we believe we can improve [quality] education in Indonesia," Eduka's CEO [who still pursuing his degree], Faiz said.

–Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian