Desty Announces Additional Funding of 71,3 Billion Rupiah in the Pre-Series A . Round

Platform developer startups e-commerce enablers Desty announced the acquisition of further pre-series A funding of $5 million or around 71,3 billion Rupiah. This round was led by East Ventures with participation from Jungle Ventures and past investors, namely Fosun RZ and January Capital.

He further explained, this fresh fund was an addition given by investors after Desty earned $3,2 million (approximately 46 billion rupiah) in a year. A pre-series round led by 5Y Capital in July 2021.

The company will then use these funds to accelerate product development and acquisitions merchant and launch innovative products in the next few months.

"Desty is one of the fastest growing startups in this field. What's even more impressive is that most of that growth is coming from organic acquisitions, word of mouth. With attractive products and business growth, we believe Desty will create more value for sellers online and Indonesian creators," said East Ventures' Co-Founder & Managing Partner Willson Cuaca.

Main products of Desty

Presented since October 2020, Desty started as a digital platform for sellers, an influencer, and creators to build a destination online to market and sell their products. Currently there are two main products, namely Desty Page (for the manufacture of landing page) and Desty Store (store creation online), for users to grow their presence and business in the digital ecosystem.

“Desty was born when Covid-19 entered Indonesia, when digitalization was massive. Seller, an influencer, and creators have used digital platforms to demonstrate their existence in a digital world that has become very important for growth. Soon we will have 1 million creators and sellers using our platform. Some of our top sellers have Desty as their main sales channel compared to marketplace others,” said Desty Mulyono Xu, Co-Founder & CEO.

Currently around 50% of Desty users are sellers online, while 30% of users are creators or an influencer. Some well-known sellers who use their services include DAMN I Love Indonesia, Luna Habit & Name Beauty by Luna Maya, Kurumi, Soul Promise, Thirst. The creators in the Desty ecosystem are Dagelan, Greysia Polii (Indonesian Olympic Gold Winner), Choky Sitohang, Tahi Lalats (Mindblowon Studio), Daisuke Botak, Marcella Eteng, Filda Salim, FootNoteStories, and many more.

Service market size

In Indonesia, more and more sellers online technology savvy due to the demands of today's customers, both for interaction and transactions. Various circles, from brand large to SMEs, continue to maximize the use of services such as marketplace to social commerce. No wonder the sector E-commerce Indonesia experienced double-digit GMV (Gross Merchandise Value) growth over the past year reaching $52 billion.

With this great opportunity, Desty has the ambition to maximize the momentum. The company has experienced growth in traffic and GMV of 60% and 50% (month-on-month) respectively for the last 6 months.

"This funding marks our third fundraiser in a year since the initial funding round in November 2020. With more than 60 people on the Desty team, we are constantly looking for new talent to make a more meaningful impact for millions of Indonesians in strengthening their digital presence, "added Mulyono.

According to the survey results summarized in MSME Empowerment Report 2021 by DSInnovate, one of the main issues faced by MSME actors is marketing their products (32%). They expect a digital solution that can help them manage their channels online properly and correctly. Pain points was captured by the innovators, and gave birth to services e-commerce enablers.

So far the players enablers most are still focused on medium and large businesses, help brand well-known for managing their transactions on the platform online. However, with the business potential of MSMEs – especially when looking at the quantity side – service providers enablers The company began to provide services tailored to the needs of MSMEs.

Besides Desty, several other players who helped small merchants to enter the realm online including Sirclo, Lakuuu, Jubelio, iSeller and others. Even some players in other sectors are now also starting to enter the same realm, for example unicorn Xendit who just released the Online Store platform for MSMEs as well as integrated with their payment system.