Bekraf Efforts to Open Access to Startup Funding in 2017

In order to open a wider funding space for startups in the country, Bekraf continue to promote the latest breakthroughs. Among them is that together with Philanthropi Indonesia established Filantropi Ventures, the plan is to launch it next month. In addition, Bekraf will also prepare funds of Rp. 10 billion for business players in the creative economy sector.

The fund is a budget approved by the government to be used by Bekraf to inject creative economy players. The allocation will mostly be directed to digital startups, while the rest will be for other creative economy sectors.

The funds will later be disbursed through a competition event that will be held by Bekraf this year. In the competition, winners will be selected who are entitled to receive the fresh funds.

"Alhamdulillah, this year we are allowed to provide capital assistance from the government. There is a budget of Rp. 10 billion that may be given to creative economy players as a whole. However, later the portion for digital startups will be large, later there will be a selection process that we will hold this year ," said Bekraf's Deputy for Access to Capital, Fadjar Hutomo, during a panel discussion at the Local Startup Fest, Friday (24/2).

Meanwhile, in terms of the establishment of Philanthropy Ventures, it has great potential for funding. Fadjar said, each year the association distributes funds amounting to trillions of Rupiah to help social activities. Now, Bekraf is encouraging members of Indonesian Philanthropy to start directing the disbursement of funds that are more business-like, not merely social.

This step to expand funding sources outside the bank is Bekraf's effort, while educating banks that do not yet understand the business processes in digital startups.

Based on the results of the 2016 creative economy survey conducted by Bekraf, as many as 92,3% of respondents said that their source of funding came from their own pockets (bootstrapping). Then, as many as 24,44% said they received funding from bank loans, and 0,66% of respondents received funding from venture capital companies.

Fadjar hopes that through the efforts made by Bekraf, he can gradually increase the portion of digital startup funding from venture capital to 5%.

"The results of this survey are a sample and are in the form of multiple choices, so this percentage is not derived from a proportion figure. We hope that this year the startup funding figure from venture capital to 5% is already good enough."

Another Bekraf collaboration is with OJK. This time, the two of them are working on the preparation of a financing scheme IPR Financing. Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Financing can be a guarantee in financing or banking funding in the development of creative industries.

According to Fadjar, IPR is the spirit of the creative economy business which has the following characteristics: intangible. IPR is a source of monetization from business actors that can be offered when meeting investors.

"Moreover, in the digital startup business, traction can be used as a source of monetization. This can be offered by business owners when meeting investors. We and OJK are still working on this scheme," he concluded.