BRI Ventures, through its latest managing fund, Sembrani Nusantara, announced its participation in the Series A round of local shoe startup brand, Brodo. Gdp Venture is also joined as an investor in this round. The value remains undisclosed.
Previously, Brodo has received seed funding from 500 Startups, Cento Ventures, Chris Angkasa, and Inovasi Partners. Was founded in 2010 by Yukka Harlanda and Putera Dwi Karunia, Brodo has achieved product-market fit through hundreds of products launched. Sales are supported online and offline, utilizing digital channels for various promotional activities.
This additional funding will be used to expand its business. In addition, it’s to increase the digital marketing platform, called Boleh Dicoba Digital (BDD). This platform currently becomes a “cloud marketing” service that has been used by some local brands such as Eiger, CottonInk, Kick Avenue, Rata.id, etc.
“Looking for a partner with aligning vision and mission is not easy […] we hope this (investment) can become a momentum for the revival of the local SME brands, especially in this quite challenging moment, because we always believe that there will be an opportunity behind any crisis,” Brodo’s Co-Founder & CEO, Yukka said.
He also said that in addition to strengthen its marketing tools, Brodo will invest in product innovation and supply chains in the shoe industry which is supported by SMEs.
Meanwhile, BVI’s CEO Nicko Widjaja said, “Brodo’s understanding of the segments they serve and their ambition to support other SMEs in advancing together through the utilization of the BDD digital platform is something that we really appreciate […] I myself see it as the most important component in Brodo’s future business, such as AWS, which has become a cloud computing platform for startups who are also part of Amazon.”
Investment to the new economy
The Sembrani Nusantara Venture Fund has previously anchored a local beverage brand Haus!. Through the series A round, the startup received an investment of 30 billion Rupiah. Indeed, this is quite good news for non-digital startups in Indonesia; because venture capitalists began to allocate special funds to invest in this segment.
We define the new economy as a startup with non-technology or non-digital products. They are potential businesses for millions of SMEs throughout Indonesia. By strengthening resources, they are projected to achieve exponential growth, along with the help of a technological approach – for example for the operational, marketing, and expansion.
For BVI, one of its missions is to strengthen the BRI’s SME ecosystem as the largest microfinance institution in the world (established and assisted the most SMEs). Their hypothesis is well-known as the EARTH (Education, Agriculture, Retail, Transportation, Healthcare). Haus! and Brodo are included in the retail category.
On DailySocial’s observation, other local venture capitalists have also started allocating funds for non-digital startups. Some of them are East Ventures, Alpha JWC Ventures, Intudo Ventures, Taja Ventures, Salt Ventures, etc.
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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian
Disclosure: DailySocial.id juga merupakan portfolio GDP Venture