Get 73 Billion Rupiah Pre-Series B Investment, Ayopop Rebranding So Ayoconnect

Startups fintech payment aggregator Ayopop do rebranding menjadi let's connect, while at the same time changing their business focus after securing $5 million (more than 73 billion Rupiah) Pre-Series B funding led by BRI Ventures.

Other new investors who participated in the round were Kakaku.com, Brama One Ventures, and previous investors, namely Finch Capital, Amand Ventures, Strive, and AC Ventures. Overall, the company has raised more than $10 million in funding.

Ayoconnect Co-Founder and CEO Jakob Rost said the fresh funding will be used to invest in technology and develop a partnership network to connect billing providers and payment partners, with the basic infrastructure for reliable, secure and fast digital bill payments.

The company also immediately doubled the number of employees, from its current position of almost 100 people headquartered in Indonesia and a technology center in India.

"We look forward to solid partnerships with our previous and new investors, which is in line with Ayoconnect's vision to shape Indonesia's billing ecosystem into one centralized network," he explained in an official statement, Wednesday (5/8).

On the occasion, he also announced the appointment of new CFO Alex Jatra to the management line. He has a strong financial track record with experience working in the private equity, venture capital, and C-Level positions at startups HARA and Dattabot.

One API Solution

Rost explained that Ayoconnect's new business focus is billing network providers (open bill network) with a One API solution that allows billing companies to expand their payment points with minimum effort, while payment partners have direct access to 2500 billing products.

The solution is to answer the problem that the bill payment industry in Indonesia is still dominated by offline, separate, and manual. Integration through the API will streamline the process so that consumers can more comfortably transact.

In this billing network, Ayoconnect connects billing companies (electricity/water companies, telecommunications, educational institutions, and others) with payment partners online and offline (including Indomaret, Pos Indonesia, and financial institutions) so that customers can pay their bills smoothly on the Ayoconnect network.

This business model has actually been introduced by the company since it was still using brand Ayopop started last August. His name is still in use Ayopop Open API. A number of early b2b partners that have used it are Dana, LinkAja, Pos Indonesia, Bank BRI, Permata Bank, Bukalapak, Lazada, and Pegadaian.

“Therefore, we would like to clarify that we are no longer just a payment aggregator. Payment aggregators are part of the payment products we offer. We are agnostic to our partners. Going forward, we will continue to run the Ayoconnect brand. Come on pop will be part of the Ayoconnect network,” Rost explained separately to DailySocial.

BRI Ventures CEO Nicko Widjaja also added, “Bill payment technology plays an important role in currently underserved vertical industries, and there is a huge opportunity for digitization in these sectors.”

Ayoconnect Co-Founder and COO Chiragh Kirpalani added, bill payment online plays a big role in the pandemic because consumer preferences shift to digital. One solution that has been developed is the Billing Reminder which is proven to have helped corporate partners, such as the Bank Mandiri Card Division and other financial institutions to carry out auto debet for bill payments.

As of last July, the company has processed more than 40 million payments through 600 billing networks and 40 payment partners. The number of transactions recorded an increase of 400% in a period of six months during the first six months of this year.

As of March, this Open API business has contributed up to 80% of the gross transaction value (gross transaction value/GTV). In fact, the company just started in November last year.

“We will remain dedicated to bill payments but build on more B2B technologies for value-added solutions for us to provide to billing providers and channel partners. Some of the categories we pursue are still very broad (blue ocean) there are hundreds of thousands of micro-billers, so we need to continue to build partnerships and improve the technology needed to drive digitization in that area,” said Rost.