1. Startups

Deepening the Business Focus of OCTOPUS, the Recycling Aggregator Platform

OCTOPUS has secured seed funding from Openspace Ventures

Implementing a technology-based circular economy ecosystem, OCTOPUS is here as an aggregator platform that can be used by related industries to earn recycling trash of scavengers and collectors. This service has started its operations in tier 2 and 3 cities.

It is noted that their services have reached almost 200 thousand users spread across five major cities in Indonesia, namely Jakarta, South Tangerang, Bandung, Bali, and Makassar. OCTOPUS has also worked with more than 1.700 waste banks and 14.600 trained and verified scavengers (they call them "sustainers").

To DailySocial.id, OCTOPUS Co-Founder & CEO Moehammad Ichsan said that the problem of recycling in the country has great potential. However, the large demand from the industry cannot be accompanied by the existing supply. Although currently the number of scavengers and collectors is large in various locations, the many layers or sales processes that must be passed by the collectors make it difficult for them to be able to sell directly.

"From the side of the conservationists and collectors, we also see that there are still trust issues among them. With that reason OCTOPUS I want to be a platform that can provide standardization for sales prices to the appropriate volume between collectors and conservationists," said Ichsan.

In order to trim the layers that are claimed to be too layered to make it difficult for the industry to get the goods directly, OCTOPUS provides an opportunity for collectors to be able to sell all the recycled goods they have obtained from the conservators directly to the industry.

OCTOPUS can also provide recommendations to collectors to adjust their business scale. For collectors who are still on a small scale, it is advisable to focus on items such as plastic. Meanwhile, those who are already in the middle category can focus on cardboard items. And for the business of collectors who fall into the big category, they can focus on certain items such as electronic recycling.

"The concept is that we bring together the informal sector, namely conservationists and collectors who buy and sell goods, the aim is to increase their profits. By bridging directly between the industry and the informal sector, we create solutions as aggregators that have impact to the environment to the social economy by solving problems in supply chain, said Ichsan.

Develop apps and dashboard

In order for the goal to achieve the right target while at the same time getting a sustainable profit, OCTOPUS then developed 3 applications that can be used by conservationists, collectors, and consumers. While for brand to FMCG companies that want to take advantage of data obtained from conservationists in various consumer locations, they also provide data processing.

For now, the monetization strategy being implemented is B2B. OCTOPUS is still focused on meeting industry demands through data processing dashboards.

However, to help conservationists get the opportunity to directly pick up recycled waste from consumers, an application that can be used by conservationists and consumers is also prepared. on-demand. Reward later received by consumers in the form of points that can be exchanged for purchasing credit, electricity tokens, to purchasing F&B products.

As a graduate Grab Velocity Ventures (GVV) Batch 4, OCTOPUS also offers point redemption for services on Grab as Grabbicycle, GrabMarts, and others.

In addition, conservationists who manage to pick up recycled waste directly to consumers' homes will be given recommendations on where to sell goods or relevant collectors. So they can get more profit by selling to more than one collector.

"For collectors, we also provide the opportunity to develop their business by getting capital from Bank BJB to KemenkopUKM [interest] rates which is much more competitive than banking, the collectors will be able to scale-up through the capital assistance," said Ichsan.

Together with the provincial government. DKI, OCTOPUS have also carried out strategic collaborations to be able to take advantage of waste banks managed by the local government. This includes the establishment of OCTOPOINT as part of the OCTOPUS ecosystem at M Bloc Space, South Jakarta. Now Jakartans can access this free service to sort, collect and manage their household waste.

"After starting from cities in tier 2 and 3, this year OCTOPUS will begin to focus on developing services in tier 1 cities, namely Jakarta and its surroundings. We hope that we will also expand services to Central Java, East Java and West Java," said Ichsan.

Initial funding from Openspace Ventures

More Coverage:

From the very beginning, OCTOPUS's mission was to help manufacturers track, sort, and collect post-consumer products. In line with the slogan 'Your Recycle Solution', the OCTOPUS application makes it easy for users to manage waste, so that it becomes one of the solutions to encourage people to dispose of waste or used goods properly.

Until now, OCTOPUS is still the first player to provide this service. With that reason in the end Openspace Ventures willing to provide seed funding.

Although claiming to still have runway enough and has made a profit, the company still has plans to do the next stage of fundraising.

"After getting fresh funding from Openspace Ventures, we have plans to increase the number of teams and focus on product development, especially the development of 3 applications and dashboard that we have," said Ichsan.

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