SME Bookkeeping Application Developer "BukuWarung" Gets Initial Funding, Led by East Ventures

BukuWarung, a bookkeeping SaaS startup for SMEs, announced an early-stage funding round led by East Ventures. The fresh funds will be used to strengthen position in the market and recruit new talents in the engineer, products, design, growth and partnerships.

Participating other investors such as AC Ventures (to merge Agaeti Ventures and Convergence Ventures), Golden Gate Ventures, Tanglin Venture Partners, and Michael Sampoerna. It is also mentioned that there are several angel investors who disbursed funds from Grab, Gojek, Flipkart, Paypal, Xendit, Rapyd, Alterra, ZenRooms and others.

At the same time, founderPaidboss Adjie Purbojati joins BukuWarung as founding team to accelerate the company's growth. Lunasbos is a two-way financial recording application, claiming to be one of the main players in the accounting service industry for SMEs in Indonesia.

BookStore was founded by Abhinay Peddisetty and Chinmay Chauhan in late 2019 while both were still working at Carousell. Previously they both had careers in Grab, Belong, and Near. For 15 years they have been actively developing payment and financial services for the SME segment in Indonesia and Southeast Asia.

BukuWarung is an application that makes it easy for SME entrepreneurs to record their business books digitally. In it there is a record of payables and receivables feature.

The shop owner can record customer transactions that buy by way of debt. Or, if the business owner has debts to suppliers or other parties. There is a bill notification via SMS or WhatsApp that will be sent as a bill.

Another feature is the recording of income and expenses so that cash flows are still recorded and business bookkeeping reports that can be accessed on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

In an official statement delivered today (7/4), Co-Founder of BukuWarung Abhinay Peddisetty said, "In the first few months, BukuWarung enjoyed a strong growth momentum. However, this figure has not yet reached 1% of the 60 million stall owners in Indonesia, who rely almost entirely on traditional record-keeping methods or do no bookkeeping at all."

"[..] Our mission is to support these stall owners with technology so they can manage their business efficiently. Kasbon (debt/receivable) covers 80% of their business. This is why we focus on digital bookkeeping products," he continued.

Co-Founder of BukuWarung Chinmay Chauhan added, "From experience building products for drivers and traders in Grab and Carousell, we understand that the most useful products for SMEs are simple products. The features that we offer make engagement up 500% in the last two months."

Chinmay said that in the near future the company will release a feature that can be used by shop owners to send bills to their customers in the form of a payment link. The link is linked to digital wallets and other methods.

"This is our effort to help them reduce direct contact amid the threat of the Covid-19 outbreak."

Co-Founder and Managing Partner of East Ventures Willson Cuaca explained, his party was interested in BukuWarung because they executed quickly and focused. As a result, growth traction and engagement generated quite rapidly, making them one of the main players.

"We believe that the next wave of innovative startups will emerge from efforts to encourage digitization in the SME segment. Therefore, we didn't just need a short time to decide to become a partner of BukuWarung," explained Willson.

It is said that in the months after its launch, BukuWarung has been used by 250 warungs in 500 cities and regencies in Indonesia. The majority of them are located in second- and third-tier cities.

It is claimed, through the application, users receive payments of accounts receivable three times faster and feel the impact of the payment reminder feature on their business cash flow. In addition, users can save time and expenses by an average of Rp. 110 thousand, which is usually spent on manual bookkeeping with ledgers, stationery, and calculators.

The new BukuWarung application is available for Android users. The iOS version is being considered for availability.