1. Startups

Alexander Rusli Describes Fintech Potential and Digiasia Expansion Plans

The market opportunity is still very large, and B2B players' understanding of fintech services is getting more mature

Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Digiasia Alexander Rush talk about market developments fintech, floor action on the US stock exchange, to its dual role as investor angle.

Chat with DailySocial.id, a man who is familiarly called Alex, sees that the potential for the Fintech-as-a-Service (FaaS) market is still very large as it matures (maturity) industry understanding of the service fintech. It's different from three years ago, when the industry didn't understand how fintech can be relevant for B2B businesses. increasing this understanding also makes exploring synergy/collaboration easier.

Throughout 2022, he said, Digiasia's business growth will be driven by many sectors fintech, especially P2P lending. According to him, the needs of the perpetrators fintech starting to increase so they can focus more on managing their core business, and don't have to bother applying for a new license.

Apart from the company fintech, his party also began to enter into conventional financial institutions, such as regional banks. He said that in the future competition will not only occur among independent players, but also big banks that have entered into the product Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS).

Currently, Alex said that his party was in the process of obtaining a license for the product payment gateway Sharia and wallet Sharia. "Not yet live, again being taken care of at BI. We always see point bread, what is the need. In the end, [the need for] people to be more disciplined, [Sharia products] will definitely go there," he told DailySocial.id.

For information, Digiasia was founded in 2017 by Alexander Rusli and Prashant Gokarn. Currently, it offers a number of digital financial solutions with licenses wallets, lending channeling, remittances, to LKD.

Latest, Planned Digiasia go public by agreement to merge with shell company Stonebridge Acquisition Corporation. With this mechanism, the pre-equity valuation through the merger transaction of the two companies is targeted at $500 million. Mastercard and Reliance Capital Management (RCM) as Digiasia shareholders will roll over 100% of their equity to become a joint company as part of the transaction.

"We chose an IPO in the US because [liquidity] has a lot of money there, it's [hard] here again, that's why there is tech winter. SPAC has beenset-up like that. The target for IPO realization is in the second quarter of 2023, but that depends on the SEC approval. There the rules are clearer. Everything is more explicit," he said.

Alex added, this capital will be used to smooth Digiasia's expansion plan into Southeast Asia. The plan is for the company to annex similar companies in related countries to facilitate licensing and commercialization of services. The license owned by the partner company does not have to be the same as Digiasia.

Role as an investor

Alex also shared his experience as angel investors which has been carried out in the last few years. He actively invests in various early-stage startups. His portfolio now has 31, including Digiasia which he co-founded with Prashant Gokarn, a fellow former Indosat official.

When looking for new business opportunities, Alex has a number of important criteria before deciding to invest. First, it takes a long time to get to know the characters founder and understand the business, it can be six months to more than a year.

"As an early [stage] investor, you have to trust the [founder] character because the product doesn't exist yet. I want to see how founder bad fight for my money, am i compatible with how it works. That's why, I rarely invest in startups that founderonly one because the risk is high," said Alex.

He believes the company can still run even though it cannot obtain further funding. According to him, the company will not die, only growth flat. Therefore, Alex is looking for a business that is approximately 80% sustainable.

Responding to the decline in the startup industry, Alex said that this situation had actually worsened eye opener so that the expectations of the founder be more realistic. That being said, the valuation method that he said was unreasonable from the start, now became commonunderstanding for related parties.

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So far, the situation down turn This does not interfere with its efforts to seek new business opportunities. With his position as an early stage investor, Alex is committed to investing in the long term, namely 5-6 years.

"I don't invest in anything that is currently busy. However, at the moment an interesting sector is agriculture and food. Businesses must be able to run with or without technology. Smallscale. If you want scale up, new to technology," he said.

Alex predicts that this year investors will be selective and prefer to invest in portfolios Existing. "Old VCs can not raise the money now, whereas VCs who have, will be more careful. Until, the fed rate went down significantly, people would be heavy for put their money out US. For me, I'll still continue what I do."

From the startup side, Alex predicts that new startups will start to emerge. However, they will be more careful about creating a business model now that the dream is over.

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