Pintek Receives Series A Funding of Nearly 100 Billion Rupiah, Strengthens MSME Financing for Education

Startups for education Smart announced the acquisition of Series A funding of $7 million (nearly 100 billion Rupiah) through its parent company, Socap Holding Pte. Ltd. Thus, the total funding that Pintek has raised so far is more than $35 million.

New investors who entered this round were Kaizenvest, Heritas Capital, Blue7, and Earlsfield Capital. Former investors, such as Finch Capital, Global Founder Capital (GFC), Accion Venture Lab, Strive, and Fox Ventures participated in this round.

CEO of Socap Holding Pte. Ltd. & Co-Founder Smart Ioann Fainsilber said that Pintek had a great desire to maximize its role in supporting the education sector in Indonesia. The company's proposition is claimed to be validated by increasing the volume of funding more than five times in the first half of 2021 compared to the same period last year..

Throughout Covid-19, he and his team focused on maintaining our ability to operate in a variety of effective ways, including adapting our product portfolio, launching new solutions for the education ecosystem, strengthening our capital structure, and expanding our reach across Indonesia.

"We want to be one of the drivers to accelerate the penetration of inclusive and high-quality educational technology and financial service products in Indonesia," said Fainsilber in an official statement, Tuesday (23/11).

Pintek Co-Founder and President Director Tommy Yuwono added that Pintek will use the focus of fresh funds for business development so that it can reach more users, improve services, develop products so that they are easier to use for all students/parents, teachers, schools, and SME suppliers. education.

“We see an increasing demand in the education sector and want to boost the accessibility of financial services in Indonesia by serving the entire ecosystem.”

Principal Kaizenvest Gaurav Jain said, "As an education-focused investment provider, we are very impressed with what Pintek has built in Indonesia in the last three years, combining social impact and innovative financial services for their users. Kaizenvest wants to support the rapid digitization of Indonesia's education sector by ensuring that high-quality learning opportunities are available to a wider segment of society.

"We are very pleased with our collaboration with Pintek because we believe that Pintek is developing a comprehensive solution that will have a multiplier effect in improving the quality of access to the entire education ecosystem," he said.

The ongoing pandemic has affected education infrastructure and severely limited access to education in Indonesia. More than 68 million students have to study from home, and more than 642 educational institutions are affected by its operations.

The difficulty of transitioning educational institutions to online learning and the lack of digitalization have become significant challenges that affect teaching and learning activities, and the urgent need for education makes Pintek present in providing innovation to these problems.

Since its establishment in 2018, Smart and its affiliates have supported more than 2.750 educational institutions and 100 educational SMEs to reach more than 650 thousand students, and provide financial education content to the public with 1,3 million unique monthly visitors. This achievement makes Pintek optimistic about targeting 10 million customers in the ecosystem in the next five years.

Financing focus for education vendors

Previously, Tommy revealed that since last year, the company began to focus on funding for SMEs/education vendors by providing business capital loans to fulfill the procurement of school facilities and infrastructure in Indonesia.

Based on analytical research Smart in July 2021 for more than 80 SMEs/education vendors, the majority still rely on private funding for capital and company operations. 90% of SMEs/self-financing vendors need cash flow in the range of Rp. 200 million for their operations, especially in providers of books and learning support tools. As many as 57% of them experienced funding difficulties at least twice in the last two years.

"From Pintek's research, we also found that SMEs/Vendors are still not familiar with funding by financial technology. This is certainly a challenge for us to be able to educate the audience more massively and thoroughly. Vendors/SMEs don't need to worry because we already have a permit and all services and operational activities are under the supervision of the OJK," continued Tommy.

This year Pintek is targeting a disbursement of up to Rp700 billion with optimal funding readiness to meet demands from SMEs/education vendors. Since 2019, Pintek has distributed funding to more than 3 thousand students and more than 100 educational institutions. Its realization in the first semester of 2021 is claimed to have quadrupled year-on-year with a value of hundreds of billions of Rupiah.