Raena's Focus on Indonesia After Pocketing Series A Funding and Taking Pivot

The impact of the pandemic can significantly encourage startup businesses, especially for those who prioritize service online and products that are trending among the public. One of the things that has increased during the pandemic is Raena. The platform helps promotional activities take advantage of an influencer social media.

In order to increase traction, now decided to do pivoting (in the sense of turning the business direction to widen market share), by providing integrated solutions not only for an influencer, but also for women who want to have additional income beauty entrepreneur.

To DailySocial, Founder & CEO of Raena Sreejita Deb revealed, from the beginning to the end of 2020, the new business developed by Raena has experienced quite massive growth. One of the reasons is the increasing number of people who carry out transactions online online during the pandemic.

"Even though many say pivoting This is a negative thing, but for us it is an opportunity for business to become more flexible. If at the beginning we only wanted to provide a platform to an influencer, now we want to provide a comprehensive solution to those who want to have their own business," said Sreejita.

The new concept offered by Raena is social commerce, manage all the needs and processes that are usually carried out by the seller individually online. Starting from stock management, beg, selection brand, to logistics. For those who want to join Raena and want to become a seller, then they can focus more on growing their number of followers on social media, WhatsApp, channels marketplace such as Shopee, Lazada, Tokopedia and others.

"Previously our model was one-to-one that connects one beg to one an influencer just. Now the concept we offer is many-to-many models, which connects various brand and various suppliers to various an influencer," said Sreejita.

Series A funding pocket

To develop the business even more massively, Raena has completed a series A fundraising activity worth $9 million led by Alpha Wave Incubation and Alpha JWC Ventures. Other investors involved in the funding this time include AC Ventures, Beenext, Beenos, and Strive. Last year, Raena had pocketed an early-stage funding of $2019 million.

"So far, we have not spent too much money on marketing activities. Therefore, we are not too aggressive in raising funds. Our focus is on increasing the value of our customers. an influencer or those who joined Raena," said Sreejita.

With these fresh funds, Raena's plan in the future is to increase the number of sellers, increase the number brand, and internal team. Until now, Raena already has a team in Indonesia of 15 people. And until the end of next year, the number is planned to be increased. Raena also sees the Indonesian market as their main focus.

Alpha JWC Ventures said that the reason they were interested in investing was Raena's vision to empower entrepreneur women throughout Indonesia by opening access to high quality beauty products. Not only that, Raena became the solution for brand who want to enter Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia, and for entrepreneurs who are looking for business consistency.

"By serving these two segments, Raena is entering a large market that continues to grow along with the growth of the middle class in Indonesia and Southeast Asia. With the expertise of Raena's founding team and our support, we believe Raena can grow into a leading player in the Southeast Asian beauty industry," said Co. -founder & General Partner Alpha JWC Ventures Chandra Tjan.

Previous DailySocial had time to review train beautytech in Indonesia, which is defined as a new model for actors in the beauty industry in reaching consumers. Its business model no longer revolves around conventional distribution channels, but combines the power of technology and digital.

Based on a Euromonitor report, the value of the beauty market in Indonesia was estimated to reach $8,46 billion in 2022, up from the estimated value in 2019 of $6,03 billion.