Telkomsel Introduces New Investment Arm, Prepares 576 Billion Rupiah for Startup Funding

Telkomsel announces a new sub unit called TMI (Telkomsel Innovation Partners) in charge of the company's funding management and business synergy. A $40 million (around 576 billion Rupiah) is ready to be poured on some Indonesia's startups. In this investment, Telkomsel partners with MDI Ventures and Singtel Innov8.

Funding will be focused on startups in big data, IoT, and entertainment (music, games, and videos). They expect this to increase corporate awareness in the developing digital business ecosystem.

Telkomsel, being known as connectivity and telecommunication company, had the initiative to create a new business model. In terms of concept, it was already made three years ago.

Telkomsel's President Director, Ririek Adriansyah said, "Through TMI, Telkomsel aims to create an engagement model that is more flexible, responsive, and reliable for startups seeking access to strategic investment, while making a better user experience with a sustainable symbiotic alliance.

As an investment arm of Telkom Group, MDI Ventures is to play the role as the Fund Manager, and focus on sharing insights with Telkomsel in running TMI.

In the official release, Nicko Widjaja as MDI Ventures CEO said, "In three years, we've grown as an experimental CVC (Corporate Venture Capital) to a reinforcement agent for Telkom Indonesia [..] We're very much into this collaboration with TMI and can't wait to work in various sectors of digital telecommunication."

In terms of the first year's timeline, Widjaja admitted to have some startups in mind for the portfolio. The target is to invest in ten or more early stage startups.

- Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian