Flip Pockets Fresh Funds Series B 688 Billion Rupiah, Entering the Centaur Rank

Flip, a payment platform startup and interbank transfer of funds, announced the closure of a $48 million (688 Billion Rupiah) Series B led by Sequoia Capital India, Insight Partners and Insignia Venture Partners. The investment in Flip marks Insight Partners' Indonesian debut for the New York-based global private equity and venture capital firm.

Although there is no information about Flip's latest valuation, the total $65 million Flip has raised since its initial funding brings Flip into the ranks of centaurs valued at more than $100 million, following OY!, its closest competitor.

Previously, the Series A Flip in 2020 was led by Sequoia Capital India and the seed funding round in 2019 was co-chaired by Sequoia Capital India and Insignia Ventures Partners.

Flip will use the fresh funds to accelerate business expansion, strengthen operations in Indonesia, invest in technology to deliver better quality, and develop talent with a focus on engineering and product teams.

“We are honored to continue to receive the trust and continuous support of our partners. We are also pleased to welcome a leading global private equity and venture capital firm, Insight Partners, which has proven successful in the global financial technology industry landscape. We believe that this partnership will help us in pursuing growth and realizing our vision to deliver the fairest financial product in Indonesia," said Founder and President Director of Flip Rafi Putra Arriyan in an official statement, Wednesday (8/12).

Sequoia India VP Aakash Kapoor said bank transfers are the most dominant payment method in Indonesia's rapidly growing digital economy. Flip has a large and fast-growing user base with amazingly good retention metrics.

“Partnering with more than 50 fintech companies and some of the distribution's first payment unicorns, Sequoia Capital India believes that Flip is the most attractive consumer fintech company in Indonesia. We are very pleased to lead together for the third consecutive round as a testament to the high confidence in Flip,” said Kapoor.

The Flip has grown significantly amid the increasing adoption of the technology. The company has served more than seven million users to process various types of financial transactions to and from various regions in Indonesia as well as for remittances abroad.

In addition, Flip provides business solutions for hundreds of companies with various industry scales, including SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises), through cash disbursement and remittance services such as employee payroll, customer refunds, invoice/supplier payments, and international transfers.

This solution exists because in Indonesia there are several obstacles faced by bank account owners when transferring money. Starting from the convenience of using the product, admin fees for different bank transfers, transaction flow to the smoothness and speed of the transaction process.

According to Rafi, there is still room to renew and simplify various financial transactions. “Flip seeks to help individuals and businesses minimize the complexity of these transactions and make money transfers at low cost.”

Flip's ambition is to become the most customer-first financial technology company (customer-centric) in the world and allows users to make fair financial transactions from anywhere to anyone.

Some of the most dominant Flip products include, online P2P payments with bank transfers to more than 100 domestic banks, remittances abroad (international remittances), top up digital wallet (e-wallet top up), and business solution products. It is noted that the transaction value processed by Flip has reached more than IDR 2 trillion per month.

BI Fast

The central bank is aware of the high transfer fees that consumers often complain about when transacting digitally. In response to this, Bank Indonesia recently launched a new system called BI Fast to reduce the cost of interbank transfers as one of its objectives.

Through BI Fast, registered interbank transfer fees have been reduced from Rp6.500 to Rp2.500 per transaction. This system was originally planned to take effect in December 2021 in 22 banks at an early stage. BI Fast is a real-time retail payment system that operates 24/7 replacing the Bank Indonesia National Clearing System (SKNBI).

Next, more and more banks will register as participants. The reason is, in the regulation it is stated that banks that can become BI Fast participants are conventional commercial banks, Islamic commercial banks, sharia business units, and branch offices of foreign banks in Indonesia.

The presence of BI Fast is certainly a threat in itself, both for Flip and OY!. Flip itself does not charge an administration fee for individual customers with a nominal transfer of under IDR 5 million in a day. If the transaction is at the maximum threshold, the user is charged a fee of IDR 2.500 per transaction. The nominal is exactly the same as that charged by BI Fast.

Recently, the company has provided 24-hour operational hours to provide users with more flexible access to fund transfers at a number of banks. Previously, Flip limited its operating hours from 7am to 8pm.