Sinarmas Group Leads $5 Million Investment for Japanese Company TwitCasting Developer

Sinarmas Group is leading a $5 million (Rp 60 billion) investment aimed at Moi Corporation, the Japanese company developing the platform live streaming Twitcasting. Besides Sinarmas Group, East Ventures also took part in this funding round. Moi Corporation ensures that the funds will be used for TwitCasting's expansion outside of Japan.

This is Sinarmas Group's second investment in the regional digital business after previously its subsidiary, PT Dian Swastatica Sentosa invest their worth IDR 40,54 Billion at Singaporean Internet broadband company MyRepublic. It was not stated what vehicle the Sinarmas Group used for its investment this time.

Twitcasting itself is an application that makes it easy for users to do streaming live video via your iPhone or Android device, much like Livestream or Ustream. There are two versions of the Twitcasting application, namely TwistCasting Live for broadcasting and TwitCasting Viewer for viewing.

Twitcasting's largest markets outside of Japan are located in the United States and Brazil, with 16% of TwitCasting users come from Brazil. TwitCasting users are recorded to reach 6,5 million with 15.000 new registrants every day. Statistically, 80% of TwitCasting users are under 24 years old.

Even though it's enough high profile, we have not found an official release as to why Sinarmas Group is interested in investing in a Japanese company. If Japanese investors usually invest in Indonesian startups, this time the situation is reversed. East Ventures itself has invested in TwitCasting in the form of: seed funding worth $640 thousand last year.

In addition to the Sinarmas Group, the conglomerate Bakrie group has also started spread the investment in global startup services by being the investment leader for social media service Path for a total $25 million Series C round.