Seeds Finance Brings a "Social Investing" Approach to Help Beginner Investors

The ratio of Indonesia's population to the number of investors (capital market and crypto) is still relatively low. Quoting from KSEI (Indonesian Central Securities Depository), as of August 9 2023 there were 11,4 investors (shares, bonds and mutual funds). Amount crypto investors in fact the figure has exceeded, now reaching 17,6 million.

In terms of quantity, Indonesia is certainly superior to neighboring countries. But judging from the population ratio, it is still far behind. From August 2020 data, for example, at that time stock investors in Indonesia reached 4,1 million investors, or 1,5% of the population ratio. Compared to neighboring countries, Malaysia has 8,7%, Thailand has 2%, Vietnam has 2,6%, and Singapore has the highest share investors, reaching 16,2% of its population.

There is still a lot of homework in Indonesia, not only increasing this ratio, it also improves the fundamental quality of investors regarding the world of investment. This homework cannot be completed if only one party does it. Seeds Finance become one of the startups that participates in improving the quality of investors by creating a solid educational foundation through concepts social investing.

Seeds Finance was founded by Willy Tan, Cliff Tan, and Wahyu Yudistiawan. The three of them combined their experience in the world of finance, technology and capital markets in various global companies in building Seeds. The initiative has been running since 2021, until it was finally officially introduced this year.

In a joint interview DailySocial.id, Co-Founder & CEO of Seeds Finance Willy Tan said, Seeds was founded because it was inspired by a proverb from the Bamboo Curtain Country, 'Qiānlǐ zhī xíng, shǐ yú zúxià'. This means that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

The concept promoted by Seeds is social investing, combining virtual trading, gamification and social media. Seeds introduces the first step towards investing with: “play-to-earn” which is risk free and “learn-to-earn” community based.

He said that his party did market research first and looked at it investor profile in Indonesia and Southeast Asia. It was concluded that there are three factors that retail investors will encounter before plunging into the world of investment, namely too risky (risks), complex (understanding literacy and investment terms is not easy), and capital (investing is expensive for Indonesian people).

“So Seeds Finance presents solutions from these three research results. The solution presented is an application social investing with educational technology with no risk at all and packed with Gamification which are fun. Every chart and candle is real-time based, both for crypto, stocks and other instruments," said Willy.

Supported by a community base, Seeds makes it easy for users to join without having to KYC. They can learn while studying with various investment communities that have been curated by the company.

Seeds Finance Products

Explained further, Seeds Finance developed an investment education application that does not require a deposit, so there is no risk of losing money when you start exploring and trying to invest. They can learn to create simulated investment portfolios without the risk of losing real money. Even though it's virtual, chart what is shown occurs in real time real-time making the investment experience more memorable.

Additionally, there are gamification-based virtual trading competitions known as 'Play Arena Tournaments'. This competition is held regularly and opens up opportunities for participants to win millions of Rupiah. The investment asset classes currently available are the United States stock market and crypto assets.

According to him, the positive impact that the concept can have social investing is that users can learn about the world of investment in a more fun way through gamification. With the knowledge and financial literacy provided, users can try various points of view and perspectives regarding their views on future projections for an asset class.

“Investing is not just about money, it is also about understanding how it works. "With the Seeds Finance application, we aim to help Indonesia's millennial and gen Z generations in building a stable and secure financial future," he added.

It is claimed that to date, the Seeds application has been downloaded by more than 50 thousand. Monthly active users have reached 12 thousand people, with 400% growth from month to month. Meanwhile, paid users have reached 3 thousand people with monthly growth of 500%.

The difference between paying and non-paying users is the nominal prize they have the opportunity to win for each competition held. This competition has an entry ticket that must be paid in advance by the user. If paid, the prize up for grabs is larger in nominal value.

“With an average of two games played per month per user, we have achieved over 100K ARR (2.700% month-on-month growth).”

This growth was achieved through various educational activities carried out by the company with more than 40 communities, ranging from universities to financial communities from Jabodetabek to outside Java. Most recently, the company collaborated with tokocrypto in order to improve Seeds Academy, increasing courses and content.

Willy also opened up the possibility that Seeds could be used for real investment, like investment applications in general. There is another opportunity that Seeds can work on, namely becoming data analytics house, all-in-one platform investment and finance content, learning platform gamified, etc.

“Seeds will continue to develop applications to make them even more fun to use, continue to expand partnerships and collaboration with many parties and communities and improve awareness to the public," he concluded.

It is stated that Seeds Finance has received support from leading venture capitalists such as Ruvento Ventures and Crestone Capital. However, Willy was not willing to elaborate on the details.

Although no one has actually adopted it yet social investing In Indonesia, there are other players who focus on educating the world of investment, such as Cuanz, Investly, and Ternak Uang.