Ant Financial-backed early-stage venture capital firm BAce Capital has led an unspecified Series A investment in Indonesian co-living provider RoomMe, the former announced in a release.
DealStreetAsia had in May reported that RoomMe had received Series A funding from Singapore’s Vertex Ventures. In its statement on Wednesday, BAce confirmed Vertex’s participation in the round, along with that of existing backer KK Fund.
Established in 2017, RoomMe looks to tap into the home boarding industry in Indonesia that provides tenants with co-living spaces, often with flexible stay durations.
RoomMe manages and markets the properties for homeowners on its platform in return for a cut of the rental income. Its services are currently largely focused on Jakarta.
BAce believes that Indonesia’s co-living industry is well positioned for development, given its economic growth and rapid urbanization.
The opportunity around co-living has enticed a number of startups to provide solutions and services to serve the industry. RoomMe competes with YukStay, a marketplace for urban apartment rental, which is learnt to have recently raised a $1-million funding round from Singapore’s Insignia Ventures. The latest to join the party is Indian hotel chain major OYO, which last week launched a new co-living business line.
Other players in the space mainly only offer rental accommodation listing platforms such as Mamikos, Infokost, as well as Urbanindo, which has been acquired by Singaporean counterpart 99.co.
The investment in RoomMe represents BAce’s first announced bet in Indonesia. The firm, which is led by veterans from Alibaba and Ant Financial, and has Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal on its advisory board, announced in April that it is eyeing to raise up to $150 million for its first early-stage India and Southeast Asia fund.
The VC says the fund will target Series A to B opportunities with ticket sizes ranging from $500,000 to $15 million, with Indonesia and India set to be its biggest target markets, taking up about 70-80 per cent of the fund’s corpus.
