Ovo Confirms Series B Investment in Bareksa Last Year

Mutual fund marketplace startup Bareksa revealed, Ovo was the sole investor who entered the round Seri B with undisclosed value. This round is said to have closed at the end of last year.

"Ovo is the sole investor in Bareksa for Series B funding. This round was closed at the end of last year. Now we are focusing on synergy," explained Bareksa Co-Founder and CEO Karaniya Dharmasaputra to DailySocial, on the sidelines of the announcement of the partnership between Ovo and Pegadaian, Wednesday (8/1).

On the same occasion, Karaniya emphasized that Ovo had not become the majority owner of Bareksa. After this corporate action, Karaniya was appointed as President Director Ovo announced in September 2019.

Since operating five years ago, Bareksa has only made two external fundings and all the investors who have entered are local companies.

One of the synergies that Bareksa will do with Ovo is to provide mutual fund products into the Ovo application, as well as presenting Ovo as an option to pay for mutual fund transactions in the Bareksa application. Karaniya ensure the development of this product will be announced in the near future.

In addition, Bareksa will add new innovations outside of mutual fund sales, including online gold sales by attracting partners and entering the secondary market for ORI sales. This ORI sales agent is a form of support to the government for the ease of investing in the capital market.

"We are also develop roboadvisors and update the appearance of the application. We hope that all of them will be launched simultaneously around March or April this year."

Regarding the sale of corporate bonds, Karaniya explained that the company has not taken steps because they have to register as non-member stock exchange companies. Previous, Bareksa announced a collaboration with FIF to attract investors from the retail sector.

"We can't do it yet because the regulation about it is still being discussed at the OJK and it's not yet possible, so we are still discussing it. We have to" Apply a new license as a non-exchange member securities company."

It is claimed that Bareksa recorded a growth in managed funds of up to 400% last year. The total public funds invested in Bareksa since 2016 are around Rp. 5 trillion. Meanwhile, when viewed from the AUM as of December 2019 alone, it reached almost IDR 2 trillion. There are hundreds of mutual fund products provided by dozens of investment managers sold through Bareksa.

Performance and cooperation between Ovo and Pegadaian

Karaniya, who is also the President Director of Ovo, explained that over the past year the company has processed one billion transactions online real-time, with an increase in the number of transactions by more than 70%.

The transaction value has increased by 55% and the number of monthly active users has increased by more than 40% with a figure of around 11-12 million users. Of all Ovo users, about 28% of them are customers underbanked aka those who have had access to financial products but are still limited.

In increasing its penetration to remote parts of Indonesia, the company cooperates with Pegadaian. For the initial stage, at the Pegadaian outlet, agents are available to simplify the registration, registration, and transaction processes upgrade Ovo. Later needed for disbursement (disbursement) from the proceeds of the pledge, cash inand cash out.

The next collaboration that will soon be developed is Multi Payment Online (MPO). This is a service for paying various monthly bills, buying credit, tickets, BPJS premiums, through Pegadaian outlets. The company itself has 4.148 outlets and 13,4 million customers spread throughout Indonesia.

"The collaboration with Ovo will increase the access of Pegadaian customers to the growing national digital financial ecosystem. Pegadaian needs to ensure equitable access to modern payment systems that are integrated, safe, comfortable, and accountable," said Pegadaian President Director Kuswiyoto.