BRI Ventures Books 150 Billion Rupiah in the First Closing of Sembrani Nusantara

BRI Ventures today (25/11) announced the closing of the first Sembrani Nusantara Venture Fund. The recorded value has reached 150 billion Rupiah; achieve half of the total targeted funding at its launch last June 2020. Apart from BRI as general partner, several investors joined in this funding including Celebes Capital, Grab Holding, Fazz Financial Group, Investree, and Pandu Sjahrir.

It says his investment thesis "beyond fintech", namely targeting business areas outside the financial technology sector – adjusting the pillars of the “EARTH” sector (education, agro-maritime, retail, transportation/logistics, health). Sembrani will also focus on empowering MSMEs; which will have an impact on strengthening BRI as the largest microfinance institution in the world.

So far, there have been two startups that have joined the Sembrani portfolio, but their names have not been named.

"We are very pleased with the positive response generated from the Sembrani Nusantara Venture Fund investors in this first funding period. All of these investors are those who have experience investing in startup companies and those who believe in the digital ecosystem in Indonesia. They believe in our goal of building There are lots of future inspirations and sustainable start-ups," said BRI Ventures CEO Nicko Widjaja.

The Sembrani Nusantara Venture Fund is also registered and supervised by the OJK. The venture fund is an investment contract scheme between PMV (Ventura Capital Company) itself and the custodian bank, which was created by OJK so that the venture capital company industry is more daring to enter equity participation. So far, the majority of local PMVs have played in profit-sharing financing, which in fact is not much different from what finance companies do.

Nico in a interview opportunity saidOne of the aims of the launch of Sembrani is to build an ecosystem that has been controlled by foreign PMVs. He felt that in the past, local PMV was not ready, but now it is the right moment to show off at the national and regional levels.

Undeniably, so far venture capital indeed tend to choose shelter under the regulations of neighboring countries. The issue of high taxation in Indonesia is the main reason. Tax application capital gain for PMV it reaches 25% of the increase in equity value, while for individual investors 30%. Meanwhile, tax capital gain in Singapore only 5%.

The majority of local PMVs that fund digital startups and are registered with OJK are part of bank subsidiaries, including Central Capital Ventures (CVC chooses BCA), BRI Ventures, Mandiri Capital Indonesia, and OCBC NISP Ventures.

Sustainable startup through IPO

Sembrani is a term used by BRI Ventures to describe sustainable local startups after era unicorn. Sembrani is also known as Batara Vishnu's riding horse in wayang stories -- you could say he represents unicorn with local wisdom.

One of the steps to realize this vision is to ensure that all aspects of the investment cycle run well, through an initial public offering (IPO) as the first step to become more competitive. sustainable. This was carried out with the signing of an MoU between BRI Ventures and the Indonesia Stock Exchange on November 11, 2020, with the aim of helping more startups to IPO on local exchanges.

BRI Ventures hopes that through Sembrani, the stakeholders will open a discussion to explore new business models so that in the future investors can participate in building venture funds in Indonesia. The structure of Sembrani is a Joint Investment Contract (KIB) which is similar to a Collective Investment Contract (KIK) in mutual funds which is well known and supervised by OJK.

"Given that our common goal is to support local digital ecosystems and build IPO-worthy startups, we recognize that Dana Sembrani Nusantara can play a more active role in the future local funding landscape and build a venture capital industry that is competitive with Singapore," said Nicko.

The composition of investors who mostly come from Indonesia is interpreted as a big step to make the local startup ecosystem more competitive in the global arena. Nicko explained, each investor will have a big contribution to the realization of this vision.