GetCraft Strengthen Its Position as Southeast Asia's Creative Hub

Recently, SOSV Chinaccelerator global VC officially announced the seed funding with an undisclosed amount to GetCraft marketing platform. According to SOSV representatives, GetCraft is the only investment portfolio from Indonesia in this batch.

Chinaccelerator's  Partner & Managing Director, Oscar Ramos said that his team saw the potential of local creative economy growing in Indonesia and began to strengthen its position in the Southeast Asian market. "GetCraft was founded in Indonesia but has a strong position as a creative space in the region," Ramos said.

With additional funding from SOSV Chinaccelerator in December 2020, GetCraft has now recorded four funding rounds. Previously, this Jakarta-based platform has received investment from Convergence Ventures and 500 Startups.

GetCraft was founded in 2014 by Patrick Searle and Anthony Reza. Based on company data, it has posted revenue of more than $8 million in 2020 and has organized creative and marketing products by more than 1,500 brands and agencies.

In 2018, GetCraft launched a marketplace platform that connects creative business people with marketers in marketing activities. This marketplace allows marketers to estimate costs and potential audiences based on their chosen content creator or sponsored content partner. This capability makes it easier for marketers to plan their content marketing campaigns.

Expansion and strenghtening position in Southeast Asia

In separate interview with DailySocial, GetCraft avoids to reveal its plans and strategies in Indonesia as it is focusing on closing a new funding round.

However, GetCraft has the opportunity to expand its business scale. Especially during the Covid-19 pandemic where marketers began to shift marketing campaigns along with changes in consumer behavior. Currently, GetCraft is available in Indonesia, the Philippines, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. The pandemic could have create opportunities for expansion into other markets.

Based on data from the Focus Economy Outlook 2020, the creative economy contributed IDR 1,100 trillion to Indonesia's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) throughout 2020. This is strong evidence that this sector can survive during the pandemic.

In addition, the need for digital marketing content, influencers, and native ads is quite high. This is highlighted by the increasing number of active internet and social media users in Indonesia. We Are Social's data as of January 2021 recorded that mobile and internet users in Indonesia has reached 345.3 million and 202.6 million, respectively.

Meanwhile, the number of active social media users reached 170 million. Some of the social media most accessed by the Indonesian people include YouTube (93.8%), WhatsApp (87.7%), Instagram (86.6%), Facebook (85.5%), and Twitter (63. 6%).

In terms of competition, GetCraft already has a strong position in the regional market as mentioned by Ramos. For the Indonesian market alone, GetCraft seems to be superior to similar platforms whose numbers may not be as many and the services offered are limited to certain categories.

Meanwhile, GetCraft enters through a wider scope of creative marketing content services, not only writing, but also videos, animations, and illustrations. Outside the marketplace, GetCraft has even entered the community segment through its paid services Crafters and MarketingCraft.

Crafters is a premium service that provides a variety of content to improve creator's skills, such as pitching tips, creating entertainment content, and business monetization. The difference with MarketingCraft, this content is intended to sharpen the skills of marketers.

–Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian