MDI Ventures, Telkom backed corporate venture capital, is said to be in talk of the third fundraising, aiming for $100 million (over 1.4 trillion Rupiah). MDI is now involving foreign investor as LP, the leaked one is Kookmin Bank from South Korea.
MDI Ventures‘ Principal and Head of Investor Relations, Kenneth Li said to DailySocial that Kookmin Bank as one of the LPs to invest in its third fundraising. However, it’s not final yet.
He is yet to confirm that Telkom would be involved in the fundraising-to-be, or the slot will be fully occupied by foreign investors. In addition, their team is looking for LP from Middle East and some of the SEA countries, such as Thailand and Singapore.
Kookmin Bank debut in Indonesia is marked as they enter Bank Bukopin’s board of shareholders. As one of the biggest banks in South Korea, they’ve bought 22% shares worth of 1.46 trillion Rupiah last year.
“Kookmin is one of the latest investors for our investment, it’s still finalizing. In this round, we’re targeting $100 million investment as we made at the first one,” he said on Friday (9/13).
The decision to open overseas is kind of a new thing. First, the company pockets $100 million investment from Telkom alone. Next, the second one is from Telkomsel’s investment arm, Telkomsel Mitra Inovasi (TMI) worth of $40 million in May 2019.
MDI Ventures is to open the gate for those foreign investors having difficulty to enter this country. They’re aware of Indonesia from unicorns that exist in media overseas but having no exposure with other locals for collaboration.
The current strategy is said to follow Softbank’s initiative. First, Softbank is using its internal funding to invest in tech-company. After positive feedback, they’re maturing for greater amount of investment from high-profile global LP.
Although this is the first time, managing funds from foreign investors wouldn’t be a huge problem. He believes the company’s proven background and history since its debut in 2015 should gain investor’s trust in terms of fund managing and guarantee promising results.
To date, MDI Ventures has managed 35 portfolio across 10 countries with a total 5 exit. Some IPO took place overseas, such as Geenie in TSE (Japan) and Whispir (Australia).
Future plan
Telkom, as the parent company, has approved the plan to explore growth outside the country. The company can’t always rely on Telkom alone, they also need support from others.
However, they haven’t change the main focus, to look for potential startups to make collaboration with Telkom Group. It’s mutual as Telkom’s effort for digital transformation as more than just a telco.
“Telkom is to go beyond just a telco. We still have a same responsibility, to find potential startups for Telkom’s future plan, it includes collaboration,” MDI Ventures’ GM of Investment, Aldi Adrian said.
The freedom to choose the startup segment might be a privilege for MDI Ventures than any other CVCs, especially bank-backed ones due to regulations.
“We’ve become more agile to enter all business segments, therefore we offer more added value than other CVCs,”
Although they’ve no intention to leak the next investment, Kenneth confirmed, there are upcoming investments before 2019 end. One of them is an investment to fintech startup founded by one of the former unicorn’s players.
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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian