Could Fintech, Edtech, and AI Startups Be the Next Unicorn

After GO-JEK, Traveloka, Tokopedia, and Bukalapak, who will be the startup? unicorn next? Could there be a breakthrough from a new sector like fintech, edutech, even artificial intelligence to take fifth place? At present, these questions can only be answered with various assumptions, based on the investment climate in each investment landscape.

2017 until now many say as the year fintech in Indonesia. Indeed, this is evidenced directly by the birth of many players in the industry, including the creation of new regulations that specifically regulate operations fintech. But is the boisterous industry directly proportional to the players' confidence to become? unicorn next.

In between performances Nexticorn 2018 in Bali, DailySocial meet one local investors who focus on fintech, namely Eddi Danusaputro, President Director of Mandiri Capital Indonesia (MCI). We asked how confident startups are fintech in Indonesia to become unicorn next. Eddi was determined to give an optimistic answer.

"Very optimistic (startup fintech) can be unicorn next. We can see a lot of startups fintech in Indonesia, which have reached Series B, some have even reached Series C. Fintech will continue to grow because the business process becomes enablers for many sectors, for example being payment gateway or the payment system," explained Eddi.

In 2017 MCI prepared funds to reach 500 billion Rupiah to invest in startup fintech. However, Eddi said that there is no specific target in terms of nominal investment, it is clear that they are targeting to invest 3-4 new startups every year. This year MCI has invested in Coinworks (Series A) and investree (Series B).

From a regulatory perspective, almost every player fintech we met said "fintech is extremely regulated"In Indonesia, startups are directly regulated by the OJK and Bank Indonesia. Meanwhile, the OJK has given quite a number of permits for startups of this type. p2p loans In operation, BI is quite tough in issuing startup licenses of various types e-money/e-wallet.

"The government is quite conservative in regulating fintech, but that's very understandable. Because in the end the regulation is also to protect consumers and build public trust for services fintech itself," said Eddy.

How about edtech?

Kemenkominfo curating several startups that are considered potential to get further funding towards unicorn. Besides fintech, there are other categories like SaaS, artificial intelligence, healthtech, and EdTech. edtech be interesting, because not many startups can survive and grow in this landscape. Because online education itself has not become a habit of the Indonesian people.

HarukaEdu is one of the startups EdTech recommended in Nexticorn. We met with Novistiar Rustandi, Co-Founder & CEO of HarukaEdu, to ask his opinion about becoming a unicorn next. He explained that the business model will be the key to generating high valuations for startups EdTech. He gave an example of the success of an outside startup called 2U.com.

"Overseas there is 2U.com, it's also become benchmarking our new product Smartia. This platform provides services blended learning, a kind of online lecture. In the past 2U.com was valued at $1 billion when they had only 12 users. As of 2018, users have reached 32 thousand, the valuation has increased to $4,8 billion. In EdTech, the acquisition is once, but the customer will pay for 4 years," explained Novistiar.

Pintaria is HarukaEdu's newest product with the concept live long learning portal. Novistiar said the development of this product was based on the needs of today's generation to keep learning. Many old jobs have begun to be eroded by automation, requiring every worker to always have competencies that are relevant to industry needs.

The way Pintaria works begins by providing an industrial competency perspective that can be selected according to user interests. Furthermore, users will be connected with institutions that provide online teaching. Currently, he has collaborated with several campuses, so that the certificate obtained is recognized as legal.

"A lot of the old jobs are starting to disappear, for example the guard pintu toll or cashier. While many new jobs appear, for example data scientist or AI trainers. The industrial revolution 4.0 does provide its own challenges, but by having the principle that we must always learn, we can continue to follow the times. That is a business potential that HarukaEdu is trying to accommodate," said Novistiar.

Closing the conversation, this year HarukaEdu is also in the process of completion funding process a new stage for business acceleration.

Artificial intelligence as a driver of revolution

The massive digitization that will occur in the industrial revolution 4.0 is said to be driven by a lot of artificial intelligence (AI) and internet of things (IoT). This means that there are significant opportunities for startups engaged in these fields to become digital business leaders in the future. To gain perspective, we also met with Kata.ai Co-Founder & CEO Irzan Raditya.

The economic disruption that involves AI is starting to be felt, even if its value can be very large. Irzan revealed that one study stated that the AI-generated economy in Southeast Asia alone had reached $400 billion. This is due to the need from the industry itself, to present more technology know more.

"There is a need to make technology more customized and know more. From this it is clear, the future of AI startups will be in great demand. AI is also said to bring disruption in various types of work, but also presents a new economy and provides efficiency to the industry in carrying out its business processes," said Irzan.

Kata.ai is known as a startup targeting the B2B segment. Through -based products chatbot, they accompany many companies to bring automation, especially for customer service. Then it is related to the confidence of AI startups to become unicorn, Irzan said the opportunity was huge.

"For fundraising, every startup certainly needs. We ourselves will be a lot Update later in December, including new products. Our mission is clear, assisting businesses with intelligent features, by providing access to AI engine"Irzan continued.