Waste Management Platform "Jangjo" Receives Early Stage Funding from Darmawan Capital

Waste management platform Jangjo announces initial funding round (seed) from Darmawan Capital with an undisclosed amount. Through this investment, Jangjo wants to modernize the waste management process by encouraging collaboration stakeholder through technology so as to provide economic benefits and impact on the environment.

For information, Jangjo is led by Joe Hansen (Co-founder and Commissioner), Nyoman Kwanhok (Co-founder and CEO), Eki Setijadi (COO), and Hendra Yubianto (CMO).

While, Darmawan Capital is an investment company that focuses on creating sustainable growth in Indonesia's digital ecosystem. Some of his portfolios include Indodax, Lyfe, DokterSehat, Udana, Kredibel, Nobi, Farmaku, and Tokenomy.

"Investing in Jangjo proves that waste management is starting to attract investors, both from an environmental and economic perspective," added Jangjo Co-founder & Commissioner Joe Hansen in his official statement.

Furthermore, Co-founder & CEO Jangjo Nyoman Kwanhok revealed that the main problem in waste management in Indonesia is not integrated stakeholder in this ecosystem. Therefore, Jangjo wants to create a sustainable waste management solution with a circular economy concept in order to connect people stakeholder.

Stakeholder referred to include waste producers (community), waste transporters (operators), temporary waste shelters (hub), and waste management (industrial). "We are targeting to be able to increase the recycling process up to 20 times, and create a circular economy ecosystem through the Jangjo platform," said Nyoman.

To overcome the problems above, he said, Jangjo developed the main solution, namely education on sorting and transporting sorted waste for the Jakarta area. Residents who are educated in sorting waste can use a garbage pick-up service to be recycled by the industry

Garbage segregation education is conducted door-to-door for residential areas. Then, Jangjo Rangers will record sorted waste data through the application.

Currently, Jangjo distributes 55 kinds of products for recycling, including styrofoam, glassware, and used cooking oil. From each process of taking this segregated waste, residents will get various things reward, such as balance e-wallet or cooking oil.

Waste management challenges

In previous news with DailySocial.id, Waste4Change Wise Representative Junerosano highlighted challenges in waste management in Indonesia. One of them is that the cost of waste management is too cheap compared to the responsibilities that must be carried out. If there is an increase in costs, this will reap protests from residents.

The man who is familiarly called Sano revealed that if you want to encourage the waste management ecosystem, the financing aspect must be better so that it does not only depend on the limited government budget.

Central Bureau of Statistics DKI Jakarta recorded that 337,33% of the waste in the Capital City came from households in 2020. The other largest sources of waste came from markets (16,35%), areas (16%), commerce (7,29%), public facilities ( 5,25%), and offices (3,22%). The Waste4Change survey added that the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 triggered an increase in the amount of waste in the household category.

In the midst of these challenges, startups are starting to take the initiative and are interested in increasing their environmental impact through technology. Apart from Jangjo whose focus is on recycling from sorted waste, there are also my WLab which recycle sugarcane waste as animal feed (bagasse). Wlabku is also supported by Gayo Capital.

Then, Duitin developed a digital service that facilitates recycling and allows people to request garbage collection at their homes and get reward. Duitin is the first startup that graduated from Google's accelerator program in Indonesia.