Indigo Demo Day Phase II and the Silicon Valley Mindset

Yesterday (24/11), Telkom's startup acceleration and incubation program held a Phase II Demo Day event with the aim of bridging the startups it fosters with potential investors. The Phase II Demo Day event itself was attended by eight startups assisted by Indigo, namely: Sonar, Minutes, cartoon, Trax Center, Kofera, SearchServices, Paket.id, and Zelos. Telkom itself, through Indigo and MDI Ventures, is intensively building a capable digital ecosystem with a Silicon Valley-style mindset.

Director of Digital & Strategic Portfolio Telkom Indra Utoyo in his speech said that the current industrial era has shifted far and is more towards a conceptual one that prioritizes the role of ideas, creativity, and innovation in solving a problem that is around. Here, the role of the entrepreneur Young people are important because in general they have a strong drive to solve problems in new ways and are close to the digital world, which currently has an unstoppable pace of development.

“So, in this era the important talk is entrepreneur […] because they are people who have ideas and passion to contribute to solving problems around them. There are many problems, there are that many opportunities for us to be able to innovate. This is [the reason] why we feel we have to develop entrepreneur, […] we do this [Indigo incubator program] as social investment, said Indra.

Managing Director of Indigo Creative Nation Ery Punta Henraswara said, “Why are we holding a Demo Day [for Indigo]? Demo Day is a means to bring together startups, governments, and investors to synergize, meet, and collaborate to strengthen the digital ecosystem in Indonesia.”

For information, Telkom's own Indigo program has actually been running since 2008. Even so, the evolution of the Indigo program which focuses more on incubation and development of digital startups was only seen about two years ago. The turning point, Indigo Incubator as an incubation that must be taken into account, was when three startups assisted by Indigo managed to get initial funding before the incubation program was completed.

[See also: Telkom's Indigo Incubator Proves Itself to be an Accelerator That Must Be Reckoned]

The change is not without reason. There is spirit that Indigo wants to build in carrying out its incubation program, namely the Silicon Valley Mindset. Simply put, all parties involved in the ecosystem that is built must be able to embrace failure. File fast, succeed faster.

Indra explained, “Silicon Valley [SV]is amindset, not location. There [SV], is not always the birthplace of the best ideas, but there ideas can develop faster and smarter because there is a methodology and there is an ecosystem of collaboration. […] Spirit that's what we're trying to build here [Indigo]."

Telkom itself has opened pintu wider collaboration with the digital startup ecosystem in Silicon Valley through its subsidiary MDI Ventures. In addition to collaborating with Plug n Play, MDI Ventures itself claims to have sufficient relationships with various well-known capital owners in Silicon Valley such as YCombinator, Google Ventures, NEA, AME Cloud Ventures, Social Capital, to A16Z.

[See also: MDI Ventures and Investment Plans in American “Space Tech” Companies]

Meanwhile, in Phase II of Indigo Demo Day this time, eight startups assisted by Indigo participated. They are Sonar, Minutes, Kartoo, Trax Center, Kofera, CariJasa, Paket.id, and Zelos. For information, four of the eight startups have managed to get seed funding before the incubation program is completed, namely Sonar, Minutes, Kartoo, and Trax Center.

Now, after going through this Demo Day stage, the eight startups generally have similar targets, namely fundraising next round. The fresh funds are planned to be invested in product development, team or talent acquisition, and marketing.