<article>Indonesian state lender BRI is in the process of finalizing the establishment of its VC fund, which will have a corpus of around $70-100 million, according to people close to the development.</article>

Indonesian state lender BRI is in the process of finalizing the establishment of its VC fund, which will have a corpus of around $70-100 million, according to people close to the development.
The lender is understood to have been assisted by MDI Ventures, the CVC of fellow state-owned firm Telkom Indonesia, in setting up the structure and management team of BRI Ventures.
Both BRI and MDI Ventures declined to comment for this story.
The new VC fund will count as only the third VC owned by an Indonesian state-owned firm after Telkom and fellow lender Bank Mandiri, which set up Mandiri Capital Indonesia as its VC arm in 2016.
Unlike Mandiri which set up its VC organically, BRI chose to move into the VC space through the acquisition of an existing venture capital firm called Bahana Artha Ventura (BAV).
BRI initially acquired a 35 per cent stake in BAV back in November 2107 before gradually increasing its stake and eventually acquiring 97.61 per cent of the company in December last year. BRI Ventures obtained a business license from the Financial Services Authority (OJK) last month.
Last month, BRI executive director Suprajarto told local media that the company will be injecting capital of around Rp 1 trillion ($70 million) into its VC arm. According to other executives, BRI Ventures will be targeting startups with potential synergies with the bank.
With the help of MDI Ventures, it is understood that BRI Ventures has built a management team of experienced venture capitalists and has already started talks with a few companies for investments.
One of the first deals to be inked by the VC is likely to be an acquisition of Finarya, the company operating the newly launched mobile payment platform LinkAja. The company provides a server-based e-money service which merges the existing e-wallet platforms of telco firm Telkomsel, and lenders Bank Mandiri, BRI and BNI. As many as six state-owned firms, including BRI, are set to acquire a stake in the company.
Both Bank Mandiri and BRI are set to make the investment in Finarya through their respective VC arms, while fellow lender BNI is still said to be considering the option of setting up its VC fund.
Indonesia’s pioneer in the bank CVC space, Mandiri Capital, has been investing from its $40-million first fund, making investments between $500,000 and $2 million into pre-Series A to Series A stage startups. It is currently in the process of raising a second fund targeted to be around $50-100 million likely to be raised mostly from external LPs.
The country’s only other bank CVC is BCA’s Central Capital Ventura, which was formed in 2017 and manages a fund of $15 million. It has backed several companies including Qoala, Element and GPN.

BRI will be the third state-owned firm to set up a venture capital fund, after Telkom Indonesia and fellow lender Bank Mandiri.

Indonesian state lender BRI said to target $70-100m corpus for VC arm

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Indonesian state lender BRI said to target $70-100m corpus for VC arm

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