Lumina Receives Funding from Y Combinator and Alpha JWC Ventures

The working community platform Lumina received funding from Y Combinator (YC) and Alpha JWC Ventures with an undisclosed amount. Through this funding, Lumina is to facilitate around 80-120 million blue-collar workers in Indonesia with limited access and decent opportunities to find work and develop careers.

Lumina claims to be the first platform that provides professional community features for blue collar workers in Indonesia. This platform provides a community based recruitment and benefits system.

In the official statement, Lumina's Co-founder & CEO, Aswin Andrison said, his team seeks not only to provide access to employers, but also to self-development, and opportunities to improve the economy .

"By leveraging the power of our exclusive community and artificial intelligence-based job recommendations, we want to democratize hiring and automate quality matching between blue-collar workers and employers," said Aswin.

Lumina was founded in September 2021 by Aswin Andrison, a serial entrepreneur focusing on blue-collar workers, FMCG, wholesalers, and MSMEs for the past 16 years. Aside from Aswin, former Twitter developer Tri Ahmad Irfan also co-founded Lumina.

Aswin himself previously founded Stoqo in 2017, the business was eventually shut down in April 2020.

In the last two months, Lumina has facilitated 100 thousand job seekers, of which 20 thousand job vacancies have been occupied. Lumina also recorded 1,000 new registrants and additional 3,000 new workers every day.

Y Combinator's Group Partner, Gustaf Alstromer said this funding will help  Lumina to unlock its potential in order to change the Indonesian workforce. "We have seen startups in other countries take this labor market online and Lumina  is the right team to face this challenge," he said.

Meanwhile, Co-Founder & General Partner of Alpha JWC Ventures, Jefrey Joe, said that Lumina will play an important role in maximizing workforce, individual and business potential.

An effort to accomodate blue-collar workers

Blue collar is defined as people who do menial work for an organization and are paid hourly wages. Workers in this category are often identified as workers who do not require higher education and only need physical strength. Generally, blue-collar workers cover the fields of manufacturing, mining, to constructions.

According to a research, the turnover rate of blue-collar workers has reached 20%. This can be burdensome for the company because according to the same survey, the cost to overcome turnover can reach $4,569. According to BPS data in 2019, low-skill workers dominate the informal sector with a 57.27% rate.

Startup players in Indonesia have started to look for opportunities to overcome various problems among blue-collar workers since the last few years. Some startups that provide blue-collar jobs include MyRobin, Sampingan, and Workmate. There are applications based platforms or job marketplaces.

–Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian