Moduit Secures 65 Billion Rupiah Pre Series A Funding to Expand Wealth Management Product

Investment fintech startup Moduit announced $4.5 million (over 65 billion Rupiah) pre-series A round led by Singapore's Reciprocus Moduit Holding (RMH). RMH is a consortium consisting of Reciprocus Financial Services Pte Ltd, insurtech entrepreneur Walter de Oude, and Helicap. In this round, participated also Djarum Group's subsidiary, PT Alto Network.

Moduit is the first portfolio of the RMH consortium with the ambition to develop the fintech business in Southeast Asia, especially in Indonesia.

In fact, the fundraising plan has been disclosed since October 2019 through DailySocial's last interview with the company. Nevertheless, with the right momentum amidst this pandemic, the company managed to boost optimism to pursue growth. The series A fundraising is said to be held next year.

In an official statement, Moduit's Founder & CEO, Jeffrey Lomanto explained that his team will use fresh funds to expand its platform to offer additional curated products from wealth management, aside from mutual funds and bonds. Also, to improve the Moduit Robo-Advisor feature, which provides algorithm-based automated financial planning services with little or no human involvement.

“We plan to attract more professionals to join us as financial planning partners at Moduit. We will offer them more opportunities and a better life balance," he said, Wednesday (11/10).

David J. Emery as Reciprocus International Pte Ltd's Founder & Chairman, also Reciprocus Financial Services Pte Ltd's CEO said that the pandemic is a double-edged sword. "Moduit has developed a digital platform that can help its Financial Planning Partners to open important wealth gateways for gen-Z and millennials," he said.

Singlife's Founder, Walter de Oude said, “Moduit is the perfect platform that combines technology with financial planning in Indonesia. Moduit has all the recipes for rapid growth and success.”

Jeffrey continued, throughout this year, without marketing support, Moduit's Assets Under Advisory (AUA) grew by more than 40% in line with the average investment value for B2C reaching $4600 or Rp66.7 million per client. Simultaneously, the number of Moduit Advisory Partners grew 74%, these partners handling an average portfolio of $60,000 or IDR 870 million per client.

In 2020, the company aims to triple the number of Financial Planning Partners and push AUA up to seven times. “The entire Moduit team is very excited about this development. With such a huge opportunity in Indonesia, our ultimate goal going forward is expansion throughout Indonesia, and we also plan to pursue series A funding by the end of 2022," he said.

Different approach

Moduit takes a different approach in marketing investment products. There are two target consumers, B2C to target retail investors, and B2B2C by targeting securities marketers to reach investors with larger amounts.

This strategy was taken as the current wealth management industry is very fragmented. There are three main activities, educating clients by finding out their financial needs and what their cashflow is like. Instead of solely provided KYC (Know Your Customer).

Furthermore, the second activity is a financial planning to simulate the investment portfolio based on the data obtained during the first activity. Finally, the execution to transact activities in the second section.

"This last part requires an PI (Investment Advisor) license to administer, connect with custodians, KSEI (Indonesian Central Securities Depository) and so on. In Indonesia, wealth management startup players are very fragmented, if we expect it to be end-to-end," Moduit's Founder & CEO, Jeffry Lomanto told DailySocial.id in a previous interview.

Based on OJK statistics, the number of representatives of mutual fund selling agents (WAPERD) was monitored to increase to 24,351 WAPERDs as of January 2021, from the previous 24,972 agent representatives in 2017.

The B2B2C business is the biggest vehicle in Moduit. However, Jeffrey still wants his two businesses to grow together with the combination of ticket size and number of tickets generated from each.

–Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian