Kodi, the SaaS Platform to Revolutionize Cooperative Performance

If anyone still underestimates or is just not familiar with cooperatives, they need to know that 12% of the world's population are members of cooperatives and employ 280 million people.

Almost all over the world, cooperatives play a large role in the economy of countries. Cooperatives in Kenya account for up to 43% of GDP, Japan recorded 42% of the population are members of cooperatives, while in Singapore 1 in 2 people there are members of cooperatives. Cooperatives in Indonesia alone are estimated at more than 120.000 units with an estimated contribution to GDP of around 5%.

Although the figures in Indonesia are not as high as in other countries, cooperatives are still an important economic organization for the country. There is a reason why cooperatives are always used as the name of a ministry. And Kodi (Digital Cooperative), a startup that has been operating since 2018, shares a similar view on the importance of cooperatives.

CEO & Founder Kodi Inra Sumahamijaya explained, currently there are about 37 million people registered as members of cooperatives or about 13% of the total population of Indonesia. However, according to Inra, this large number has not been followed by sufficient information regarding the intricacies of cooperatives, especially regarding the financial health of cooperatives.

"Cooperatives also have problems with transparency in fund management, revenue flow, and member management because it is difficult to access digital technology solutions. Even if there are, the prices are not affordable for small and micro cooperatives," said Inra to DailySocial.

With such a huge market potential and accompanying problems, Kodi goes with the platform software as a service (SaaS). The Kodi platform allows each cooperative unit to use a simplified banking system for recording transactions online and offline cooperative. Their platform can also be used for cooperative membership management, annual end meetings, and as a cash register application.

"Kodi monetization is obtained from various channels, one of which is a subscription fee of IDR 1.000 per cooperative member per cooperative per month," added Inra.

Kodi targets various types of cooperatives, from employee cooperatives to savings and loan cooperatives. But so far Inra admits that she has focused on employee cooperatives and community cooperatives first. Currently, they have pocketed more than 30 cooperatives as clients, some of which come from national banks, private banks, financial authorities, doctor associations, and retail stores.

Meanwhile, from the funding aspect, Kodi is still in the pre seed of a number of angel investors. With the market potential and available technology, Inra expects more and more cooperative digitalization platforms to play. According to him, this will have a positive impact on the domestic economy.

"Kodi is optimistic that the Cooperative vertical will become fresher and more modern to support the Indonesian economy even more," concluded Inra.