Lakupon Funding and Daily Deals Business in Indonesia

Services daily deallakupon today announced the receipt of $742.000 (or IDR 9.6 billion) in funding from Singaporean investor New Wealth Capital. Lakupon itself is part of the Indonesian media conglomerate group EMTEK which is controlled by Creative Media Karya (KMK). This funding round was led by New Wealth Capital Managing Partner James Tan and Partner Sean Lim.

Lakupon's funding will be maximized to integrate the sale and promotion of vouchers sold with BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) services. Previously, the BBM Discovery service itself was also in the middle maximized potential by KMK Online to improve their performance. Naturally, more than 60 million BBM users in Indonesia is a very valuable asset.

Daily deals business in Indonesia

Recent time sector daily deal played by several platforms, including Evoucher, Dealgoing, Ogahrugi, Groupon and Ensogo (formerly LivingSocial). But alas, Groupon give up first to sell the service shopping deals and Ensogo eventually had to close its services and operations in Indonesia (Ensogo even closed all of its services in Southeast Asia, followed by the resignation of CEO Kris Marszalek). Even so with Dealgoing which is currently also very dim.

The path of local startups in this category, despite the loss of several players, is still continuing. Just say it Voucher. The startup led by Danny Baskara is still confident in its potential in Indonesia. Armed with Series A funding from VITI in the middle of last year, this startup is even more aggressive in distributing products voucher through the site and mobile app which is owned. Finally they reported that there had been almost a million products and voucher which is currently being managed.

In the midst of increasing service enthusiasts online commerce, along with the presence of dozens of players E-commerce both local and international, business daily deal indeed faced with a challenge that is quite racking the brain. Because E-commerce and online marketplace with more complete and diverse product owners in fact also providing offers with the same system, or even crazy discounts wrapped in various kinds of performances. So generally people choose to shop directly.

It becomes interesting when investors still believe in the existence of services daily deal in Indonesia. Especially with new serums that are continuously being prepared, such as what Lakupon will do with the EMTEK business entity. Will this approach be effective for increasing traction of -based services? daily deal? Or will it still remain the same and the business model will be increasingly eroded E-commerce which is more common?