KUPU Recruitment Startup Raises IDR 91 Billion in Funding

KUPU, an AI-based recruitment startup, announced today (04/9) that it has received funding of $6 million (or around IDR 91 billion). The round was led by Ascend Global Investment Fund (AGIF), a Singapore-based private equity fund managed by Ascend Capital Advisors.

With this funding, AGIF is included in the KUPU list of well-known investors, which includes big names such as the Sinar Mas Group.

Previously, both AGIF through Ascend Global and the Sinar Mas Group through Golden Energy and Resources, partnered in the establishment of a joint venture company Golden Investments (Australia) Pte Ltd engaged in mining products and mining services companies.

With this funding, KUPU plans to further expand its market, strengthen AI-based recruitment solutions, and provide better services to an even larger customer base.

"This investment is a form of AGIF's optimism for the potential of the recruitment technology industry in Indonesia and KUPU's ability to capture this potential. KUPU is in a strategic position to bridge the need for high-quality talent in a country with rapid economic growth like Indonesia," explained the AGIF representative in a statement. official.

KUPU CEO Haibo Zhou said he believed that with the progress and modernization of the business world in Indonesia, more and more new industrial sectors would be born and grow. These companies certainly need the right talent to be able to compete in this digital era.

"Therefore, KUPU's role as a bridge and recruitment partner will become even more important, especially so that business people can find the right and qualified potential candidates amidst the abundance of talent in Indonesia," he explained.

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KUPU's main focus is to transform the recruitment process to be easier, more accurate, and more efficient. This is because currently the majority of personnel (HR) are still having trouble finding employee candidates that fit the company's criteria. Usually, in one job vacancy there are 250 applicants who send their resumes.

Then, around 4-6 of them will be selected for the interview stage and only one will get a job offer. This process is very time consuming, the average company spends 68 days looking for one employee.

Therefore, this startup, which was established in 2021, brings many new innovations to the corporate recruitment process. Several creative approaches are offered, including Talent and Job Competency Models, Omni-Channel Sourcing, AI Video Interviewerand AI Matching Model.

For example with AI Video Interviewer, the KUPU system can conduct candidate interviews automatically with a certain list of questions, then send the recorded interview results to the company for evaluation, making it easier for the HR team to carry out screening methods candidate.

A comprehensive range of solutions from KUPU helps companies save recruitment processing time by up to 20%, and enlarge pool curation of quality candidates up to 200% compared to conventional methods. It is claimed, as of August 2023, KUPU has assisted more than 600 thousand job seekers to find suitable vacancies.

Not only through the latest technology systems, KUPU offers self-service mobile applications (self-service) intuitive and personalized recruitment advisor. As a result, in less than two years, the KUPU platform has more than 3 million active users and 150 thousand business people who are looking for employees have entrusted their recruitment process to KUPU. These startup clients include companies of various sizes and industries, from Allianz, DBS Bank, Mitsubishi, Paragon, Smartfren, Kawan Lama Group, to Burger King.

Going forward, KUPU plans to continue expanding its client and user reach and developing smarter recruitment features on the platform. This strategic step is in line with KUPU's vision to become a pioneer of intelligent recruitment technology systems that help companies and job seekers to navigate the ever-changing industrial landscape.