Kalla Group Establishes Saoraja Hub Incubator, Collaborates with Local "Venture Capital"

The lack of a promising platform and potential among young entrepreneurs from Eastern Indonesia, especially Makassar, is the main reason why Kalla Group established the Saoraja Hub. Functioning as an incubator, later Saoraja Hub will become a platform for entrepreneur from Eastern Indonesia who has ideas about digital and creative businesses to gather together to share ideas.

To ensure that the idea runs properly from a business and management perspective, Saoraja Hub will provide initial capital to five selected startups. 

“Startup categories that enter can also be diverse and not just digital-based ones. However, ideally they have services or sectors that are similar to the business of the Kalla Group,” said the President Director Kalla Group Solihin Jusuf Kalla.

Solihin continued, to strengthen the incubator, Saoraja Hub will cooperate with venture capital corporate to local. Still in the exploratory stage, Solihin was reluctant to further mention who venture capital which will form a partnership with Saoraja Hub.

"There must have been two venture capital local and from banks and corporations who are ready together with Saoraja Hub, ready to help improve the startup ecosystem in Eastern Indonesia,” said Solihin.

Previously Saoraja Hub was also involved with DISRUPTO, an inclusive disruption movement initiated by WIR Group. This activity aims to reach out to governments, startups and global economic and technology players. This event will be attended by a number of Indonesian government institutions.

"Starting from a casual conversation about the low number of entrepreneurs in Makassar, we finally established Saoraja Hub," said Solihin.

Utilization warehouse Kalla Group

In addition to establishing the Saoraja Hub to accelerate the growth of startups in Eastern Indonesia, especially Makassar, Kalla Group also has plans to use its warehouses to be rented out to FMCG companies and e-commerce services. The logistics division (warehouse) owned by Kalla Group currently has a large enough capacity. Ideal for use and rent.

“Initially we had no intention of using the warehouse for FMCG companies. However, due to their request, we finally started to use the warehouse we have for the FMCG company's goods storage needs," said Solihin.

Overall, Kalla Group still has about 20 hectares of land which will be used for warehouse construction. Asked when Kalla Group plans to collaborate with e-commerce services for the use of the warehouse, Solihin said that it is still in the planning stage and there is no agreement with e-commerce services at this time.

"Our focus in the future is to start to enter the digital business. Although it is still slowly but with the potential and existing resources, Kalla Group has plans to start entering the digital business,” said Solihin.

Asked whether Kalla Group has plans to enter the fintech or financial sector, Solihin said that he does not yet have a plan, citing the lack of a strong enough background in the sector.

“Since our inception, our focus has been on automotive, transportation and logistics, construction and development, manufacturing, to energy. For this reason, we have no plans to enter the financial realm,” concluded Solihin.