Indonesian accounting app raises seed funding from East Ventures, Sampoerna, AC Ventures and others
Published on April 6, 2020
Original post by Tech in Asia
In Indonesia, over 60 million micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) rely on outdated methods of bookkeeping or don’t do it at all, said Abhinay Peddisetty, the co-founder of BukuWarung, a digital bookkeeping startup.
The Indonesian company, which aims to help small merchants do business efficiently, has announced that it has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding in a round led by East Ventures.
Golden Gate Ventures, Tanglin Venture Partners, and AC Ventures (a joint funding entity by Agaeti Ventures and Convergence Ventures) also participated in the round. Other backers include Indonesian billionaire Michael Sampoerna and strategic angel investors from Grab, Gojek, Flipkart, PayPal, Xendit, Rapyd, Alterra, and Zen Rooms, among others.
BukuWarung said it will use the new funds to expand its Jakarta-based team across functions such as engineering, product, design, growth, and partnerships.
The accounting app tracks all transactions including credit, expense, and sales, helping merchants get cash flow visibility through business reports.
The company claims that merchants receive 3x faster repayments and see increased cash flow due to the automatic payment reminders sent by the app. They are also able to save US$6.70 in bookkeeping expenses on average .
The majority of merchants using BukuWarung are from tier-two and tier-three cities, according to a statement.
Within a few months of launching, millions of credit and cash transactions have been recorded on the app by over 250,000 MSMEs across more than 500 cities and small towns in Indonesia, according to the startup.
But Peddisetty said the company still has a long way to go.
“Despite the strong initial traction, we are still less than 1% done,” he said. “Kasbon [credit] drives up to 80% of their [micro merchants] business, which is why we decided to focus on digital bookkeeping as our initial product.”
Co-founder Chinmay Chauhan said the startup is looking into launching new features – such as sending links to customers that allow them to accept payments via digital wallets – to reduce potential exposure to the Covid-19 disease. “We’ve also partnered with healthcare startups to create awareness for Covid-19, as the safety of users is our number one priority right now,” he said.
Peddisetty and Chauhan, who both previously worked at Singapore marketplace app Carousell, launched the app in 2019. Adjie Purbojati, the founder of Lunasbos, a two-way accounting app for MSMEs in Indonesia, is also part of BukuWarung’s founding team.
