Ula Snags 1.24 Trillion Rupiah Series B Funding, to Release Paylater Product for Warung

Ula snags $87 million in series B funding (approximately 1.24 trillion Rupiah) led by Prosus Ventures, Tencent, and B-Capital. Participated also in this round, the Bezos Expeditions, a VC created by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos; along with other leading investors, Northstar Group, AC Ventures, and Citius.

Ula's previous investors, including Lightspeed India, Sequoia Capital India, Quona Capital and Alter Global cut another check in this round. On this occasion, Ula also announced that AC Ventures Founding Partner, Pandu Sjahrir was appointed as the company's advisor.

This funding was announced eight months after the series A funding in January. Collectively, the company has raised a total $117.5 million in funding within 20 months since its founding.

The company will use the funding to expand its geographic and team coverage area, to realize its vision of empowering the traditional retail industry in Indonesia. These include releasing new categories, developing paylater feature, developing new technologies, logistics infrastructure, and local supply chains.

Ula's Co-founder & Chief Commercial Officer, Derry Sakti said that this BNPL solution was presented because Ula already has 70 thousand stalls that transact through its platform, the database is a provision for credit scoring before disbursing loans.

The company is said to grow 230 times, offering more than 6 thousand products. The majority of Ula users come from tier two to four cities that still lack access to resources and logistics infrastructure.

As is known, traditional retailers have limitations in accessing banking products, even though they are very dependent on daily income, this makes the paylater option to suppliers will have tremendous benefits for warung.

“Using Ula, they no longer have to worry about purchasing goods, product availability, or even payment, which will give them more time to focus on other more important things. Seeing the impact firsthand that Ula has given to customers' lives certainly moves our team to move forward," he said in an official statement, Monday (4/10).

Ula's Co-founder & Chief Operating Officer, Riky Tenggara added, “Solving the complexities of supply chain problems in Indonesia is a very challenging and impactful endeavor. As a company built on a community, we cannot underestimate the importance of providing services that our customers can always rely on, especially services that can make a real difference to their lives.”

Ula investors, AC Ventures and Northstar, also put on some statement. They stated that they have the same mission regarding the importance of empowering Indonesian MSMEs through technology. This is because MSMEs contribute more than 60% of Indonesia's GDP and become the backbone of the country's economy.

"Ula provides a more efficient procurement and operational system, and ultimately opens access to credit that is needed to expand the MSME business scale," AC Ventures' Managing Partner, Adrian Li said.

The Ula app allows shop owners to order a wide variety of products and have them delivered directly to their stores. With a simple concept, Ula tries to focus on customer needs rather than adding unnecessary features, to ensure the best experience. The app is said to be lighter, suitable for low connection environments and the most basic devices, and ensures it doesn't take up too much space on their phones.

Potential warung digitization

The service solution solves a very fundamental issue. Based on the results of a research entitled The Future of Southeast Asia's Digital Financial Services, at least 92 million adults in Indonesia are yet to have access to banking financial services (unbankable) – making it difficult for them to access transactional digital services directly. This is quite a big number, even greater than the total population of countries in Southeast Asia except the Philippines.

Warung is the most outreaching business system – the place where micro-economy across Indonesia revolves. According to 2016 Economic Census data released by BPS, of the 26.4 million units of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (UMK), 46.38% fall into the category of "Wholesale and Retail Trade, Repair and Maintenance of Cars and Motorcycles. “ – warung is in it. This number is also the largest among other types of businesses in Indonesia.

In an interview with DailySocial.id, Ula's Co-Founder Nipun Mehra explained his analysis of why his startup is steadily expanding into this sector. He said, traditional retail like warung is the main pillar of the Indonesian economy. "This is the backbone of the consumption economy, while employing millions of people. Traditional retailers are cost-effective and have deep knowledge of the local market. However, this sector is the most vulnerable part of the value chain because they usually work individually on a small scale," he added.

The diversification they trying to make is the efficiency of resources and capital by presenting a doorstep system (direct product delivery) that is cost-effective. In addition to connecting retailers with stock providers of FMCG products, they will also expand product coverage in the fashion category.

–Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian