Bizhare Provides “Equity Crowdfunding” Platform to Help SME Capital

Bizshare is a platform equity crowdfunding that facilitates business franchise. The system owned allows the general public to be involved as investors. Bizhare facilitates a capital scheme for new entrepreneurs or those who previously had a business and want to open branches in other locations.

According to Bizhare's Founder & CEO Heinrich Vincent, currently there are many SME businesses that have the potential to grow rapidly, but in reality they are only stagnant there. After tracing most of the problems in capital, so they could not increase the scale and scope of business.

Other conditions that have inspired development Bizshare is that many SMEs in Indonesia do not have access to banking, in terms of business loans -- perhaps some of them don't want to. From these two things, Bizshare considers that equity crowdfunding can provide a middle ground.

Equity crowdfunding allows anyone to participate in providing capital for a business. The implication is that investors will get a share of ownership according to the agreement with the founder. In large-scale businesses, this kind of practice may be common, but at the SME scale it is still something that is not too common.

"Bizhare is here to provide access to capital for businesses by distributing share ownership to the public to get funds cash to open the next branch. After the second branch is profitable, the business can do the same to open a third branch, and so on," said Vincent.

He also explained that of the 1.700 trillion Rupiah capital requirements in SMEs, only about 700 trillion were facilitated by banking. The rest still need alternative solutions so that the SME sector can grow as targeted. Model equity crowdfunding considered to be the most efficient way to provide access to inclusive finance for business owners at the SME level. Including when compared through crowdfunding or peer-to-peer which is considered burdensome because it must provide asset guarantees.

Menurut Vincent, equity crowdfunding can also minimize risk for investors and SMEs, because it prioritizes profit sharing so that investors can receive passive income. Profits can be immediately given to investors like dividends in the capital market, according to the portion of share ownership.

Currently, Bizshare has two main products, namely for Take-Over and Grand Opening. Bizshare Take-Over is a system designed to help businesses that are already running and want to grow their wings. Meanwhile, Bizshare Grand Openning provides a system to facilitate new entrepreneurs who want to start their business.

Besides Vincent, Bizhare was developed with three other people, namely Gatot Adhi Wibowo (CFO), Giovanni Umboh (CTO), and Wahyu Sanjaya (CIO). Previously Bizshare was also a local finalist for the event Seedstar Summit which was held in 2018, and had won a startup competition held by Tempo.

On the Bizhare platform, there are currently several types of businesses that are assisted with capital, ranging from culinary businesses, retail outlets to other service businesses. The community can help with capital starting from Rp. 5 million. Acquisition of shares will depend on the targeted value of the funding.

On the other hand, regulations regarding equity crowdfunding currently completed by OJK. However, from the previous presentation, OJK wants this scheme to be simpler for SMEs. Because this model is considered as an alternative business funding other than the IPO through the IDX.