Compared with a decade ago, Indonesia’s venture ecosystem is more mature and the quality of companies has also improved, believes Jakarta-based Intudo Ventures’s founding partner Eddy Chan.
That’s why, despite the upheaval caused by COVID-19, the VC firm continues to fund early-stage companies in their pre-Series A to Series B rounds.
This year alone Intudo invested in eight companies — the data management solutions provider Delman; entertainment company Visinema; Wahyoo, which provides digital solutions for small eateries; micro-insurance platform PasarPolis; cloud kitchen operator Yummy Corp; agritech platform TaniHub, freight logistics marketplace Kargo Technologies; and fintech platform EMQ.
The VC firm still has plenty of dry powder. “We will never invest just to invest. However, we typically run at a cadence of roughly four to six new companies a year,” Chan said, adding: “The pandemic has only strengthened our resolve to investing solely in Indonesia.”
Chan says the company’s underlying investment thesis is “digitisation and transformation of traditional industries” — a process that has only accelerated with the pandemic. “There will be a continuation in the scaling of foundational businesses such as payments, logistics, and enterprise services to support e-commerce and key traditional sectors,” added Chan, who founded Intudo in 2017 along with Patrick Yip.
Intudo, which has 20 companies in its portfolio, had closed a $50-million second fund in February 2019, after its $20 million debut fund in February 2018.
In an exclusive interview with DealStreetAsia, Chan — a former venture investor in successful startups such as PayPal, SpaceX, and Palantir Technologies — said the pandemic has demonstrated the importance of hyperlocalisation in investment operations.
Edited excerpts:-
