iSeller Secures 120 Billion Rupiah Funding, to Expand Business Coverage

POS developer startup iSeller announced a pre-series B funding worth of IDR 120 billion led by AppWorks and Openspace Ventures. Previous investors, Mandiri Capital Indonesia (MCI) and Indogen Capital, also participated in this round.

The fresh money will be used for business expansion to 50 cities in Indonesia, accelerate merchant acquisitions, and strengthen collaboration with important players, such as Grab. It is expected to boost the company's performance up to 500% from the previous achievement.

iSeller's Founder and CEO, Jimmy Petrus said, compared to the Series A round last year, the company managed to achieve impressive growth this year, which is more than 300% year-on-year of merchant acquisitions and annual revenue.

“[..] Through the latest round, we are committed to continuously creating new innovations and updating products, technology, and infrastructure to be ready to reach millions of MSMEs in the process of accelerating digital transformation in Indonesia. We believe that the iSeller solution and ecosystem holistically will be able to take MSMEs to the next level," Jimmy said in an official statement, Wednesday (13/10).

AppWorks' Founder and Chairman, Jamie Lin said, "In just a few years, iSeller has been able to drastically improve MSME business efficiency and establish an excellent reputation. He assessed that iSeller has enormous potential to become the market leader for omnichannel-based business POS platforms.

Apart from iSeller, other AppWorks' portfolios in Indonesia include HarukaEdu, Fabelio, and InfraDigital.

“[..] The dedication of iSeller's founders make them incredibly powerful in the SaaS business, where continuous product innovation is required. We expect strong growth in the Point Of Sales sector and omnichannel-based business platform and this is already reflected in iSeller's growth and performance," Lin said.

Was founded in 2017, iSeller provides an easy-to-use and comprehensive POS system solution for merchants to sell on any platform – online, offline, marketplace. The company has ambitions to become a super app merchant in Indonesia, the same spirit with GoBiz, Gojek's service unit.

"Using this funding, we are targeting 10x growth in 2022 by expanding our reach in Indonesia. As well as sharpening focus to provide solutions for retail, F&B, service, and lifestyle business lines, especially those that rely on the e-commerce market as their main source of income," iSeller's CCO, Kevin Ventura added.

The company recently launched a new product, iSeller Go for small-scale MSMEs to sell through online stores or combine offline sales through POS by utilizing existing technology like smartphones. Next, Marketplace Integration is a solution for business people who want to sell on various marketplace platforms without any hassle because sellers can manage all of their marketplace accounts through one iSeller web-admin.

It is said that there are hundreds of merchants have taken advantage of and implemented this feature in their business. Previously, the company was selected to be the official WhatsApp Business Partner in Indonesia to enter the social and chat commerce segment, the next generation of e-commerce services. "In the near future, iSeller will soon launch several new innovations in collaboration with Facebook," Kevin said.

Currently, iSeller has been available in 10 cities outside Jabodetabek, such as Bandung, Bali, Medan, Surabaya, and Batam. The company claims to have proceed over a million transactions per month across all channels. The solution has been utilized by more than 60 thousand business players, including several premium businesses such as SOGO, OMNILUXE, MOI, Damn! I love Indonesia, IT Gallery, United Bike, Sinarmas Insurance, MOVI, HMNS, ASHTA, Lemonilo, and Peripera.

Omnichannel solution

This omnichannel-based solution is actually quite relevant. The research entitled "2020 Ecommerce Fulfillment Trends Report" revealed that 86% of the respondents, who are e-commerce merchants, sell their products on more than one channel. Some of them also sell through social media. In the future, 69% of merchants plan to continue to increase online sales channels.

In addition to iSeller, there have been several startups offered similar solutions, two of which are Clodeo and Jubelio.

According to a report by DSResearch with Mandiri Capital Indonesia, it was stated that there are three main problems often faced by SMEs in Indonesia related to Financial, Operational, and Expansion. SaaS service models like the one offered by iSeller have proven to contribute to business improvement, resolving these issues in an agile way.

Indonesian SaaS startups for business

–Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian