Focusing on digitizing the country’s 60 million small businesses, Indonesian startup BukuWarung announced today that it has raised new funds from Rocketship.vc and Indonesian retailers.
The amount was undeclared, but sources say it has brought in $20 million in total funding for BukuWarung so far. The final round of the company, announced in September 2020, ranged from $10 million to $15 million. Launched in 2019, BukuWarung founded Chinmay Chauhan and Abhinay Peddisetty and participated in Y Combinator last year.
Rocketship.VC is also an investor in the Indian startup ledger, which has been valued at between $275 million to $300 million in its latest round of funding. Like notebooks, BukuWarung supports small businesses, such as neighborhood stores known as warung, which previously relied on paper ledgers, shifted to digital bookkeeping and relied on online payments. BukuWarung recently launched a Shopify-like tool called Tokoko that allows merchants to create online stores through an app and says Tokoko has so far used 500,000 merchants.
Chauhan, the president of BukuWarung, said that the revenue generation has started through its payment solution. In total, BukuWarung now claims more than 3.5 million registered merchants in 750 Indonesian cities and towns, stating that more than $15 billion worth of transactions across its platform and processing over $500 million in terms of volume.
SMEs contribute about 60% to Indonesia’s gross domestic product and employ 97% of its domestic workers, but many have difficulty accessing financial services that can help them grow.
By digitizing their financial records, companies like BukuWarung can make it easier for them to access credit, working capital loans, and other services. Other SME suppliers in Indonesia, the largest economy in Southeast Asia, include BukuKas and CrediBook.
BukuWarung will use its new funds to develop its technology and product teams in Indonesia, India and Singapore. It plans to launch more monetization products, including credit, this year and expand its payment solutions.
