Emerging as Industry Agnostic, Indogen Capital is Committed to Helping Investors Enter the Indonesian Market

The VC industry continues to grow significantly, given the Indonesian market as one of the most active in the Southeast Asia region. One of the contributors is Indogen Capital, an investor in the agnostic sector in Southeast Asia with operating experience that focuses on the competitive landscape of the Indonesian market.

In terms of resources, Indonesia is very evocative with all the dynamics of lifestyle and business in it. Indogen Capital, as a VC with experience related to family businesses and a strong network, aims to be a partner for foreign VCs who want to expand into the Southeast Asian market, especially Indonesia. This is what makes them different from other VCs.

Indogen Capital's Managing Partner, Chandra Firmanto said, “Indonesia has become a priority for the digital market, and we see that Indonesia is getting more aggressive. Most of the big players are not local, they have no knowledge of our culture and customs. I see this as a venture capital opportunity to help foreign VCs to expand portfolio."

Investment focus and targets

As venture capital, profit becomes the ultimate goal. Despite labeling itself as industry agnostic, Indogen Capital is committed to investing only in promising sectors, such as fintech, lifestyle (including Esports), logistics & e-commerce, AI & Blockchain, and Edutech.

“The metrics are clear, there has to be value in the technology. Therefore, financial institutions need your services

In terms of stages, Firmanto said that currently the company specializes in pre-Series and Series A. They only target post-seed, no seed because it is high risk. However, he acknowledged that companies also have exceptions, especially in companies that involve professionals or employees entrepreneur series.

The target is clear, must exit, but the method can be different. There are three ways exit mentioned by the Managing Partner of Indogen Capital. First, from the IPO. In this case, there will be a period lockdown [6 to 1 year] to fully exit. Second, exit through acquisitions. This is most likely to happen with fairly flexible valuations on demand. Third, is jsecondary exit, where investors can sell established shares to VCs or other investors.

"Secondary exit This is very interesting, this is the reason why we have to build a good relationship between VCs,” added Chandra.

Current portfolio

Indogen Capital started operations at the end of 2016, when Managing Partner, Chandra Firmanto graduated from his family business and started a new innovation with some friends. They started investing in 2017 and have managed to record 18 portfolios to date, including Southeast Asia's leading auto trading platform, Carsome, and the online market for local Islamic fashion designer products in Indonesia, alive. One of the newest is a short term rental and property management platform, Travelio.

Of the 18 existing portfolios, three of them have exit. The first is Spacemob which was acquired by WeWork in 2017. Second, they exit from Clearbridge Health with an IPO on the Singapore Stock Exchange. Lastly, there is AINO, a payment solution for the transportation sector and government in Indonesia which has been partially acquired by TIS Corp.

“VC is full of competition. However, when we offer added value, we can turn it into a collaboration. In this regard, we have a strong network and a will to hands-on making,, said Chandra.

Behind all success stories, there must be a meaningful lesson. In this case, Indogen Capital has also experienced a not-so-good investment in one of the services on-demand in the field of domestic work and laundry in Indonesia. This issue becomes complicated when discussing the company's future plans. At that time, we simplified the scheme exit and focusing too much on the little things that don't make a big impact.

“One important thing I learned, is that it is obligatory to confirm with the players whether they have a desire for a particular product or service in their ecosystem,” said Firmanto.

Related to fundraising

Indogen Capital has printed Fund the first was US$ 10 million with all the LPs involved local and 80% already disbursed. Currently, they are eyeing a second US$ 50 million fund, which will soon cover the first US$ 10 billion from global networks, such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan. Regarding the remaining 40 billion, Firmanto said the team had provided space for large companies.

Every startup has a different type of need, Indogen Capital tries to accommodate all of these through the right investors. That's the reason behind their first fund involving only local LPs. This is their strength. The investors came not only from Java Island but from all over Indonesia.

"Don't say you want to be an investment partner for Indonesia if you can only support those on the island of Java," said Firmanto.

About ticket sizes, they set about 200-500 thousand on the first fund. “We are not even a threat to other VCs. This is more about profit than loss,” Chandra continued.

It said it had exceeded its annual return on investment target of thirty percent consistently year-on-year. His team admitted to being very aggressive when setting a target of 3-5 returns or return in 7 years.