East Ventures Will Continue to Add New Startup Portfolios in 2019

As one of the venture capitalists that is quite active in providing funding, East Ventures is consistent with their mission to help startups early stage. Claiming to be agnostic, it said it did not have specific criteria regarding what category of startups to invest in.

Currently East Ventures has invested in hundreds of companies in Indonesia, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia and Thailand. The majority of East Ventures' portfolio is able to secure continued funding, dominate the market and even become leaders in their fields.

Among the startups that are currently successful and are still receiving advanced funding are Tokopedia, Traveloka, Ruangguru, Warung Pintar, Disdus (acquired by Groupon), Kudo (acquired by Grab), Counter (acquired by Gojek), Shopback, Techinasia, IDN Media, Moka, CoHive, and Omise.

According to East Ventures Partner Melisa Irene, entering its 10th year in October, East Ventures still has plans to continue providing early-stage funding to Indonesian startups. At least 30 startups have received funding in 2018. And in 2019, East Ventures has a target to increase that number.

"Over the past 6 months we have been closed 12 deal, currently 6 startups are in the preparation and target stage closed East Ventures are 24 startups until the next third quarter," said Melisa.

In addition to supporting various startups, East Ventures has also developed three internal projects in Indonesia, namely CoHive, Smart Shop and Fore Coffee. The three projects succeeded in finding the right product for the market (product market fit) and then became a standalone startup.

According to Melisa, East Ventures' decision to run the project by placing the East Ventures team was to see opportunities and a supportive ecosystem to launch the project.

"I also see that there is no entrepreneur who can offer us a solution which we then run as an internal project," said Melisa.

Earlier this year, East Ventures introduced a new investment hypothesis, namely New Consumption. Some of East Ventures' portfolios that are in line with this hypothesis are Fore Coffee and also The FIT Company, a startup that uses technology to build wellness ecosystem with a mission to help individuals achieve healthy living goals.

Importance Product MarketFit

For East Ventures, all business models if they have attractive innovations, a solid team and promising potential, will certainly be a concern for funding. At East Ventures itself, there are three important points that are applied when the startup curation process is carried out. Among others are people, market potential and product.

"We also suggest that the startup understands well product market fit. If the startup has carried out the process, we as investors will look at the products offered," said Melisa.

It was asked whether in the future East Ventures would be interested in investing in e-sports, Melisa asserted that for now not interested. As a venture capitalist, East Ventures is not interested in providing funding to industries that are purely financial in nature trending and hyping only, but can't promise the future long term.

"We see esports, even though it is very popular at the moment it is only hyping momentarily, temporarily long term the prospects don't look promising yet," said Melisa.