Telkomsel's Venture Capital Debut Investment for Kredivo

Today (7/3) Telkomsel, through the investment arm, Telkomsel Mitra Inovasi (TMI) announced new investment for FinAccel (Kredivo). It is supported by MDI Ventures, the investment arm of Telkom Group. There is no further detail or nominal of the funding.

As of the current news, Kredivo's latest funding was Series B worth 435 billion Rupiah, led by Square Peg Capital involving MDI Ventures, Atami Capital, and its previous investors. Earlier, they also received Series A funding from some investors including Jungle Ventures, Alpha JWC Ventures, 500 Startups, and many more.

"The collaboration between Telkomsel and Kredivo aims to provide payment solutions while maintaining to accelerate thousands of Indonesian retail entrepreneurs by providing alternative financial services for a broaden customer segment," TMI's CEO, Andi Kristianto said.

MDI Ventures' CEO, Nicko Widjaja said, "There are some collaborations and synergies we identified as capable to bring great benefits for Telkomsel and FinAccel. It brought benefits because both parties can go-to-market at once, reaching out to Telkomsel's broad customers and providing services with significant added value to them.

TMI was officially announced on May 2019. The amount of $40 million (equivalent to 576 billion Rupiah) is prepared to invest in startups operating in Indonesia. Under the initiative, Telkomsel partnered with MDI Ventures and Singtel Innov8. Previously, funding is to focus on big data, IoT, and entertainment industry startups.

Kredivo comes with the right innovations amidst the e-commerce momentum in Indonesia. The service offers "virtual credit cards" for various shopping demand. Regarding market penetration, they currently available in Greater Jakarta, Bandung, Surabaya, Semarang, Palembang, Medan, Bali, Yogyakarta, and Solo.

The credit given is within 30 days, 3 months, 6 months and 1-year tenor. Interest per month is up to 2.95%. Currently, the platform has been implemented in almost all kinds of e-commerce operating in Indonesia. Recently, the company founded by Akshay Garg, Alie Tan, and Umang Rustagi also launched a new product of cash loan.

Previously, the one rumored to invest in Kredivo is its series A round investor, Jungle Venture, worth 2.5 trillion Rupiah. However, it seems that it hasn't been realized until now.

–Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian