Indo Tekno Podcast

Jakob Rost joins the Indo Tekno podcast to discuss Ayoconnect's aggressive evolution from an initial focus on payments aggregation toward a more elemental Open Finance platform. A company he founded in early-2016, Ayoconnect is modelled around the premise that “every company will be a fintech company”. It offers broad fullstack solutions to any financial institution or tech company seeking to enter online banking and payments services quickly and comprehensively. Jakob also shares the backstory of world-renowned hedge fund/PE Tiger Global's investment in Ayoconnect's early-2022 fund-raise, marking one of Tiger's earliest ever investment rounds in Southeast Asia. 

The three lead authors of the annual e-Conomy SEA report return to the Indo Tekno podcast to share further color on this seminal report on the state of the Southeast Asian digital economy. Stephanie Davis of Google shares deep analysis around the nature of slowing digital adoption growth in 2022, describing the massive shift amongst the region's  tech platforms from "acquisition to deeper engagement as a business model." Wai Hoong Fock from Temasek meanwhile reviews several mixed trends in public and private valuations, noting all the while a continued rise of interest in the region amongst investors, which is no better revealed than by the sharp growth in the number of single family investment offices based in Singapore from 400 in 2020, to 700 in 2021.  Florian Hoppe of Bain & Company summarizes conversations with a wide swath of the firm's tech clients, noting surprise by how well Southeast Asia has held up. Compared to what his global colleagues are seeing, Florian posits that Southeast Asia "appears to be relatively far away from a real recession."

Climate Tech investment set a record half globally in 2022 1H, with $26.8B in venture funding across roughly 970 deals. However, less than 2% of start-ups in Asia are climate-oriented, while the global average is 15%. Jonathan Davy of Ecoxyztem joins the Indo Tekno Podcast to discuss the criticality of Ecoxyztem's unique turnkey venture builder model to address Indonesia's under-developed Climate Tech sector, and the broader opportunity that his incubatees have across the developing world. Jonathan also offers examples of the platform's 360-degree support of portfolio companies such waste4change,  Enertec and ReservoAir.

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) standards within tech are rapidly evolving from a "nice-to-have" to a "need-to-have". Fellow AC Ventures colleague Lauren Blasco, who leads the fund's ESG efforts, shares findings from a first-of-its-kind report co-authored with BCG which sets the first quantifiable ESG standards for Indonesia’s tech sector. Lauren views "risk mitigation, streamlining operations and identifying opportunities" as common benefits that tech start-up's cite in adopting ESG guidelines. Such actions may not be optional going forward: a growing number of VC fund LP's require ESG adherence across a fund's portfolio. Moreover, the EU is close to mandating that all large companies disclose around ESG-related issues. The US SEC meanwhile is likely to require that all listed companies, tech & non-tech alike, address ESG in their filings. 

Naga Tan, Co-Founder & CEO of ErudiFi, joins Indo Tekno to discuss solutions to Indonesia's extraordinarily depressed tertiary enrolment rates (~36%), one of the lowest in the region (eg: Thailand 60%, Singapore 90%). ErudiFi leverages alternative data to extend education financing in markets such as Indo and the Philippines (collective TAM of USD5b), in order to help increase enrolment and accelerate industry growth. Cash/informal loans often carry high interest rates while school internal instalment plans are limited. ErudiFi offers 0%-1.5% monthly interest rates, usually grants approvals within a day, and offers students a more generous tenor of 6-24 months. The platform seeks to fund over 300,000 Indonesian students by 2024.

Indonesia generates approximately 6.8 million tons of plastic waste every year, according to the Indonesia National Plastic Action Partnership (or NPAP). Shockingly, almost none of this waste has been sorted in the past. Indonesian actor and presenter Hamish Daud joins the Indo Tekno Podcast to discuss his efforts to apply data analysis and entirely new practices in order to address Indonesia's deficient waste collection and recycling practices. Octopus, a start-up he cofounded with partner Moehammad Ichsan, seeks to create an efficient reverse logistics service for Indonesia's packaging industries. The platform enables granular tracking of "Postconsumer Material" (PCM), offering valuable data services to FMCG clients such as Danone and P&G.

Vincent Iswara, CEO and Cofounder of Indonesian payments platform DANA, discusses an encouraging cooling in competition in the space amidst recent pressures in the global financial markets. He also sounded an optimistic tone around prospects for industry profitability going forward. DANA payment volumes in 1H 2022 alone surpassed the company's full-year 2021 volumes. Vince also offers a compare-and-contrast between China and Indo's payments players. DANA boasts several strategic investors on its "cap table" such as new investors Lazada Group and Sinarmas. DANA has taken an "open platform" approach as a payments provider, offering its capabilities to any major third party e-commerce or other commercial platforms requiring a payments solution. This strategy stands in contrast to "captive" payments solutions which serve largely one single individual e-commerce, ride-sharing or other large platform. 

Helga Tjahjadi, the Cofounder and and CEO of food Indonesian tech start-up making plant-based beef and chicken Green Rebel Foods, joins us to discuss how the country is optimally placed to see strong secular growth in the ongoing shift to alternative proteins. Helga discusses what it takes to build an entirely new consumer brand in 2022, one specifically embracing Indonesia and Asian roots. In addition to profiling several of Green Rebel's indigenous technological innovations such as "texturization" and "Rebel Emulsion", Helga also discusses Green Rebel's unique supply chain, expansion plans and goal to achieve price-parity with traditional proteins. 

Pensieve Founder Farina Situmorang traces her deep interest in the application of advanced technology to politics and government to her fervour in supporting Barack Obama's campaign for the White House when she was studying in the US. Widely known as one of the architects of the successful digital campaign popularly known as “The Jokowi Effect”, Farina founded Pensieve in order to harness artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning to assist governments in emerging markets with digital transformation. Farina also shares views around both the good and the harm that large digital platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have had in political discourse, both in Indonesia and globally. 

Ans Syuhada, Cofounder and Tech Lead of SME accounting solutions platform Delegasi, walks us through a career built around software engineering, from his early days when Ans' and cofounder Okki Pratama's alma mater ITB began offering instruction in product management, to some 6.5 years running engineering and platform & data at leading aquaculture platform eFishery. A Y-Combinator Summer 2022 participant, Delegasi seeks to vastly simplify the accounting challenges of the small business owner, starting with Indonesia's restaurant segment.