Edtech Startup Dibimbing Seeks Fresh Funding Through FundEx SCF Platform

Edtech startups Dibimbing seeks fresh funding through stock securities issuance at FundEx, a securities crowdfunding startup. Dibimbing aiming for IDR 1.2 billion funding with 45 days offer period. There are 2.4 million total shares issued or the equivalent of 5% with a Rp500 price per share.

Dibimbing was founded in November 2020 by three young alumni of the University of Indonesia, Zaky Muhammad Syah, Alim Anggono, and Wildan Gunawan. The company focuses on helping users improve the abilities and skills required in the working industry. The educational programs provided are data science, digital marketing & UI/UX, business intelligent & SEO.

Indonesian digital industry's rapid growth is faced with a major issue, the demand and availability of digital talent. World Bank's data shows that Indonesia requires around nine million digital talents in 15 years or around 600 thousand people per year in average. If you rely only on the conventional education system, it will not meet the pace of the current industry.

As a solution to this gap, Dibimbing was developed as an edtech platform that provides digital skills learning, career preparation, and job distribution for Indonesian digital talents.

“Dibimbing has a vision to deliver unlimited digital talent as we want to help people find jobs easily and also provide them access to low-cost learning. Therefore, we need funding to scale up our product, and we need a partner to help spread the impactful work of Dibimbing for our customers," Dibimbing's CEO, Zaky Muhammad Syah said in an official statement.

The company's business growth shows an upward trend. Its early days' turnover rate was only IDR 2 million, then slowly increased to IDR 4.49 billion by the end of last year. The company has reached the BEP and make profit in the second quarter of 2021. There are 912 people who already graduated, mentored by 147 experts registeres in Dibimbing.

In the company's prospectus, Dibimbing offers a number of benefits for its investors. In addition to capital gains, investors also get a special bonus in the form of a free investment class worth of IDR 1 million for each person.

Around 80% of the funds raised by Dibimbing will be used to improve the quality of technology-oriented products, including the use of AI to provide a better experience for its users. The remaining 20% ​​will be used to recruit the best marketing team to acquire more users

Mitigation process with FundEx

Dibimbing is the second company to raise funds through a startup pioneered by Agung Wibowo. Dibimbing's shares are available to purchase through FundEx starting from Rp500 thousand, it will be affordable for many people.

In a separate interview with DailySocial.id, Agung explained that the company held a quite strict mitigation process with Dibimbing's funding, from the beginning of the registration/pre-funding process to funding. Also, FundEx has been socializing the decision to issue debt or stock-based securities.

"We socialized the differences and consequences of the two securities products on the SCF platform, therefore, prospective issuers can choose securities that suit the company's needs and strategic plans."

He further explained, in the initial phase, prospective publishers are required to carry out an e-KYC process to ensure that the company/prospective issuer is a legal entity," he said. After e-KYC is complete, we move on to the next stage, the process of signing an agreement between the prospective issuer and FundEx, either electronically or manually.

The goal is to ensure that if there are further obstacles to various parties in the process of offering securities to potential investors is a legal and binding agreement. Furthermore, the due diligence. Prospective publishers will be analyzed in terms of their performance, business prospects, and business risk profile.

This stage is also carried out transparently and can be monitored with prospective publishers through the FundEx platform, e-mail, or other communication media. "Every prospective issuer that passes the due diligence test and launches its securities offering on FundEx, potential investors can get a prospectus and can start funding the issuance of these securities."

Agung continued, “Prospective investors' funds do not go directly to the prospective issuer's account, but are kept in an escrow account. It will only be transferred to the checking account of the prospective issuer if the crowdfunding target for the securities issued has been met. And if the funding target is not achieved, the funds from potential investors will be returned, and the securities offering will be null and void.”

FundEx targets to provide alternative funding platforms for 30 companies by the end of this year. Meanwhile, conducting intensive education through various activities on various online and offline platforms. This step is important to align the public's understanding of the investment variants with different levels of risk.

Based on data compiled by OJK as of December 2021, the total fundraising through the SCF platform reached Rp412 billion, an increase of 115.48% compared to the same period in the previous year of Rp191.2 billion. Likewise, the number of investors in 2020 was 22,341 people, an increase of 319.56% to 93,733 in 2021.

–Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian