Rukita Announces Funding of IDR 234,5 Billion from MPower Partners, BNI Ventures, and NBA Athlete Jeremy Lin

Startups proptech Rukita announced the acquisition of series B1 funding worth $15 million or around IDR 234,5 billion. This round was attended by a number of new investors, namely MPower Partners, BNI Ventures, Openspace Ventures, and NBA superstar Jeremy Lin. This is also the second investment announced by the basketball player nicknamed "Linsanity" after previously also being included in the latest funding Binary Academy.

Rukita's previous investors also participated in this funding, including Surge (Peak XV), Golden Gate Ventures, Shunwei Capital, OCBC Ventures and real estate veteran David Tsang.

"We are very pleased that Rukita is MPower Partners' first investment in Southeast Asia. This is in line with the managed fund's vision to integrate ESG principles into the core strategy of growing startup companies," said Yumiko Murakami, General Partner of MPower Partners.

He continued, "With the founding team's extensive expertise in business operations and the local real estate industry, we are proud to partner with Rukita in their mission to provide affordable, quality housing for Indonesia's next generation."

Rukita also expressed his optimism regarding the business model being proposed. This is early because this relatively large investment gain comes in the midst of conditions "techwinter", when investors become more selective in disbursing funds to startups.

"This funding marks a significant step forward in our journey to redefine the real estate landscape and drive accessibility to quality housing for a variety of lifestyles and life stages," said Rukita Co-Founder & CEO Sabrina Soewatdy.

Has achieved positive EBITDA

Since its founding in 2019, Rukita has presented a variety of solutions ranging from property rental services, co-living, property marketing, to RuFinance financing (in collaboration with OCBC, the bank has prepared IDR 724 billion in credit funds for financing in Rukita). Apart from consumers, Rukita also has a B2B business model for services corporate housing and collaborative property management.

Targeting the upper middle class, especially millennials, Rukita's business is growing rapidly as evidenced by positive EBITDA achievements since 2023, four years after the company was founded. It is claimed that currently there are 1,4 million rooms managed by the ecosystem with users reaching 3 million per month.

In his interview with DailySocial.id two years ago, Rukita Co-Founder & COO Sarah Soewatdy indeed said that the company's target was to immediately achieve profit. At that time the financing business was not yet running, business co-living considered the most prospective with track clearer profitability.

“We are paying close attention economic units, all decision what we take must be responsible. Nowadays, it is no longer the time to burn money, everything must be done responsibly. We will profitable end of this year [2022] because our main business is already very sustain. "

Rukita also had time to improve the property he manages acquired the Infokos platform in mid-2022.

Develop property technology from end to end

Ecosystem proptech and Rukita's technology infrastructure seeks to bring together property, landlord, market insights, markets, financing and tenant services to reshape the concept of home and homeownership. However, it is acknowledged that the property sector in Indonesia is not easy to redeem in terms of scalability.

The highly fragmented nature of the housing market and the need to balance property management, supply, financing, marketing, hospitality and operations makes the sector proptech Indonesia has unique challenges, but with tantalizing growth potential.

"BNI Ventures sees the potential for very high growth in the property sector. To accommodate the needs of the rapidly growing market, BNI Ventures invests and bridges startup synergies proptech Rukita with the BNI Group ecosystem. "Rukita has a technological infrastructure that is able to bridge property owners with prospective residents through various rental services supported by financial solutions from the BNI Group ecosystem," said CEO of BNI Ventures Eddi Danusaputro.

The Rukita model brings together 360 services for the housing market through a dynamic technology platform, transforming relationships with customers and landlords from transactional to long-term ones.

Furthermore, the fresh funds obtained will be used to accelerate business growth through technology development, expanding services, and recruiting technology talent.

"We look forward to deepening the strength of our technology talent to strengthen our platform and better serve our growing base of tenants and property owners," added Sarah Soewatdy.