Indonesia’s Lippo Group, headed by the Riady family, has announced a strategic investment into the fintech space with an initial injection of funds into Singapore-based startup Call Levels.
Call Levels, co-founded by Daniel Chia and Cynthia Siantar, monitors live exchange data and provides free immediate price alerts to users globally. It has previously secured investments from angel investors like Koh Boon Hwee, formerly a chairman of DBS Bank, and Timothy Teo, as well as US venture fund 500 Startups.
Asked to comment on the investment rationale, Siantar told DEALSTREETASIA: “This question is better answered by Lippo’s representative. But here’s their answer to another similar question: This investment is not a diversification from real estate. The Lippo Group is a conglomerate with interests in areas such as financial investments, retail and services, information technology, industrial activities in addition to real estate and urban development.”
Call Levels, which automates price notification calls for investors, credits its simple and user friendly interface on mobile platforms such as iOS, Apple Watch and Android as the reason it has penetrated the longer tail of investors, including the older generation.
Functioning as a provider of financial monitoring and immediate notification service, investors can monitor price movements of their stocks in the financial markets. The app monitors the price movements of their stocks, commodities, forex and indices, with users being able to share alerts with peers in order to extend tracking and monitoring.
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Call Levels claims to have seen strong traction and usage, due in part to the unprecedented levels of market volatility persisting from 2015 into 2016. It claims to have experienced 400 per cent growth in users over the last 3 months.
Asked about their traction in Indonesia, Siantar shared with DEALSTREETASIA: “We don’t have Indonesian stocks right now so we have not really gone out to market Call Levels in Indonesia. Though I can say that investment from Lippo is the first step for us to enter other Asian markets (where Lippo has a strong footprint) and capture the retail investors in these markets.”
She added, “We do have users from Indonesia right now and they probably invested in Forex or US Equities (or are monitoring any of the assets we offer). We don’t ask our users who they are unless they choose to tell us.Overall, our growth of over 400% in the past three months has resulted in a base of almost 60,000 users to-date.”
The app, which can deliver 11 new alerts per minute, has successfully drawn support from professional traders and beginners who rely on it to monitor the price fluctuations of financial market prices.
In a joint statement, the co-founders said: “We empower not only financial institutions, professionals, traders investing heavily in technology but also everyday participants to give everyone that edge.”
2015 saw Call Levels shortlisted for the Appster Awards 2015 – an industry event organised by the firm Informa Telecoms & Media – as one of the top three fintech apps, with an invitation to join the Level 39 initiative based in Canary Wharf, located in London’s financial centre.
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