KoinWorks Lay Off 70 Employees

The storm in the startup industry continues. Following other startup friends, KoinWorks also joins streamline structure organization this year. Startup It lays off 70 people or about 8% of its total employees.

As reported by Tech in Asia, this layoff is an effort to reorganize the company structure. KoinWorks ensures that it will continue to strive to meet user needs.

DailySocial.id has contacted KoinWorks Co-founder and CEO Benedicto Haryono. However, no further statement has been revealed regarding this matter.

For your information, earlier this year KoinWorks booked a series C funding of a total of $108 million, consisting of $43 million in equity and debt $65 million. With this additional funding, KoinWorks' valuation is estimated at $250 million.

Since last year, KoinWorks has started to expand its strategy beyond business lending to reach more MSME users, namely: menjadi neobanks. According to Benedict, conversion rate from lending fairly low below 10% of the total leads who entered. This makes a number of MSMEs experience overfinance alias is not feasible to be funded or is not in need of funding.

To that end, the company collaborated with Bank Sampoerna to release KoinWorks NEO aimed at MSMEs. KoinWorks NEO is an integrated financial platform for MSMEs, freelancers, content creators, until startup. To sharpen its mission, KoinWorks re-introduces new risk profile assessment Grade S (Special Grade) for micro and small business financing.

Wave of startup layoffs

There were quite a number of layoffs in the startup industry this year, including Xendit, Zenius, and LinkAja. The number of employees affected by layoffs amounted to tens to hundreds of people.

Based on the data we have collected, the largest number of layoffs this year occurred at Zenius, which was as many as 800 employees in 2x announcements. This layoff was carried out by Zenius due to changes in macroeconomic conditions and consumer behavior.

Meanwhile, Xendit did not only lay off workers in Indonesia, but also in the Philippines. RevoU Report referring to LinkedIn Premium Insights data, Xendit received 307 new employees last year. Meanwhile, Zenius took 521 new employees in the same period.

P2P Potential

Some time ago, the Indonesian Joint Funding Fintech Association (AFPI) estimated that lending in 2023 can go up to 25%. According to Deputy Chairperson of the AFPI Multipurpose Cluster, Yolanda Sunaryo, the pandemic has opened up business opportunities for the community, as well as SMEs.

P2P lending has a big role in reducing the gap in loan needs. Based on AFPI data, the need for loans/credits in Indonesia reaches IDR 2.600 trillion. Meanwhile, conventional financial institutions, including banking, pawnshops, and financing, have only disbursed around Rp1.000 trillion. There still is gap amounting to 650 trillion which can be facilitated by P2P.