Cove Enliven Co-Living Service Competition in Indonesia

Industry proptech especially those who carry the concept co-living in Indonesia seems to be getting crowded. cove, proptech from Singapore is expanding its presence in Indonesia after posting its newly announced series A funding.

Cove has been present in Jakarta since April 2020. Proptech which is headquartered in Singapore is led by Guillaume Castagne, Sophie Jackson, Luca Bregoli. Act as country director in Indonesia is Rizky Kusumo. The service targets young professionals and students as its market. They claim to have a total of 550 rooms in Singapore and Jakarta.

Guillaume sees the problems that arise in the room rental industry that are often encountered are unaffordable prices; designs that do not suit the tastes of today's youth; poor property maintenance; to inflexible, slow, and non-transparent rental processes.

"Cove is able to increase space efficiency and create products that match the interests of the growing millennial and Generation Z market so as to maximize profits for asset owners," explained Guillaume.

Guillaume claims that what sets Cove apart from other players is its smoother and more transparent rental process. In addition, Cove offers fully furnished rooms, regular housekeeping, routine maintenance, wifi connection, and flexible monthly contracts.

As for the cooperation system that they have created with property owners, there are several types, including a profit-sharing system. A report from e27 says Cove also offers income guarantees for property owners. But one thing is for sure they guarantee no fees for middlemen.

"Now our occupancy is above 90 percent," he added.

Just got Series A funding

At a media conference today (16/12), Cove also announced a series A funding of $4,6 million or equivalent to Rp. 64,84 billion. The funding was led by Keppel Land followed by Idinvest Partners-Eurazeo Group, Smarty City Venture Fund, and Idinvest HEC Venture Fund.

As additional information, Cove secured seed funding in September 2019 which was attended by Venture Capital, Yuj Ventures, Investigate, and Picus Capital.

With this funding, Cove has strengthened its business focus in Indonesia. Cove's first focus is still in Jakarta and its surroundings, but they also intend to expand to other big cities such as Bandung, Surabaya, Bali, and Semarang. Their target by mid-2021 is to double the acquisition of all their rooms to 1.000 units.

"Only to expand to new cities, we must first grow in our main market, namely in Jakarta," said Rizky Kusumo.

After being quite confident with Indonesia's achievements, the next countries that Cove will visit are Vietnam and the Philippines. "The market in Indonesia is number one in priority," concluded Guillaume.

The presence of Cove in Indonesia is clearly increasingly enlivening the competition proptech which carries the concept co-living. RoomMe, Rukitaand Flokq are some examples. Not to mention other players like RedDoorz and Bobobox who also released the product co-living.