BukuKas Bags 709 Billion Rupiah Funding, Joining the Centaur Club

BukuKas, a bookeeping app startup for MSMEs, announced $50 million (equivalent to 709 billion Rupiah) Series B funding led by Sequioa Capital India. Also participated in this round some of well-known angel investors, such as Gokul Rajaram and Taavet Hinrikus, one of TransferWise's founders.

Sequioa Capital India previously led the Series A rounds for BukuKas four months ago worth of $10 million (equivalent to 141 billion Rupiah).

BukuKas will use the fund to build up the engineering and product teams in its two offices, Jakarta and Bangalore. The company is to expand the services for business people in line with the company's vision of providing comprehensive software solutions for MSMEs in Indonesia.

"This new investment round will boost our growth as efforts are being made to build a complete financial solution for small businesses that we believe are the bread and butter of the Indonesian economy," BukuKas' Co-Founder & CEO, Krishnan Menon said in an official statement, Tuesday (5/18).

The announcement, he continued, is in time with the launch of the new payment feature of CashPay last month. This feature allows businesses to pay to their suppliers on time and to collect debts from their customers digitally, through various digital payment methods, such as Virtual Bank Accounts, QRIS, and popular e-wallets.

Within a month of its release, BukuKas is said to recorded tens of millions of US dollars monthly payment transactions on its platform.

As of April 2021, BukuKas has succeeded in reaching 6.3 million shop owners and small businesses, of which nearly half or as many as 3 million of them are monthly active users. BukuKas recorded an accumulated transaction value of nearly $25.9 million, or equivalent to 2.2% of Indonesia's GDP.

Krishnan targets the company to grow users up to 20 million MSMEs by 2022.

BukuKas was first launched in December 2019 under the incubation of Whiteboard Capital. Companies are evolving to meet the transformation of MSMEs, evolving from simple digital financial records applications that allow small business owners to better record and manage sales and expenses.

Currently, BukuKas is an application that provides inventory management, create invoices, and perform analytics.

“BukuKas wants to be the first choice for business ecosystem partners to help small business owners develop and grow in this digital era. "In line with the launch of BukuKasPay, we will continue to build the trust of BukuKas users and support them with comprehensive banking and trading solutions in the near future," BukuKas' Co-Founder and COO, Lorenzo Peracchione added.

Confirmed as Centaur

In Bukukas' funding journey, prior to entering series A and B, the company has secured $9 million in early stage funding led by Speedinvest. In total, BukuKas has raised $69 million and with the math's done, this is likely to send the company into the ranks of centaur startups or aspiring unicorns.

This is a term for startups that have reached a valuation of over $100 million and under $1 billion. The valuation referred to here is measured based on the funding raised from investors.

As we tried to confirm with the CEO about the centaur status and asked for an estimated valuation, he preferred not to comment.

According to the 2020 Startup Report, there are at least 43 centaur startups in the Indonesian ecosystem by 2020. Six of them already have a valuation of over $500 million.

In addition, the startup industry enthusiasm for similar businesses like BukuKas has skyrocketed. It is marked by the various disbursement of funding provided to BukuWarung and Credibook throughout this pandemic. Apart from them, there are other players who have joined, including Moodah, Teman Bisnis, Akuntansiku, Lababook, Akuntansi UKM, and many more.

-Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian