Asumsi digital media startup received additional funding from East Ventures. The value is said to reach $700 thousand or around 10 billion Rupiah. Previously, the startup founded by Pangeran Siahaan had secured pre-seed funding in September 2020.
Fresh funds will be focused on expanding media operations and strengthening the engineering team to create a more interactive platform. Asumsi targets to launch a live streaming platform in mid-2022. The platform is highly customizable to streamers’ needs, and viewers can access interactive features such as tipping, Q&A, and quizzes.
“As a media company with video as its main product, we recognize several limitations in interacting with viewers, especially during live streams. With the live streaming platform, Asumsi can continue to encourage the involvement of various elements of society in public spaces,” Asumsi’s Founder & CEO, Pangeran Siahaan said.
In addition, this platform will also add two new categories, Sport and Lifestyle, to complement the content that focused on politics and social issues. These two topics were chosen to broaden the audience reach and increase new commercial opportunities.
To date, Asumsi has produced a lot of content in the form of videos, articles, podcasts, newsletters, to mini content on its social media platforms. From a business perspective, they claim to have posted revenues of up to 10 times (year-on-year) since the previous funding round, with more than 10 million monthly viewers across platforms.
East Ventures’ media startup portfolios
In the East Ventures’ portfolio hypothesis, online media vertical becomes quite an attractive sector. Currently, several local media startups have received funds from the venture capitalist. Aside from Asumsi, there are also IDN Media, Katadata, and Content Collision.
“Asumsi continues to expand to provide quality news to the Indonesian people. We believe that the innovations in journalism from Panferan and his team will create greater space for all forms of diversity and democracy in Indonesia,” East Ventures’ Co-founder and Managing Partner, Willson Cuaca said.
The increasing consumption of digital media during the pandemic shows that the content presented is proven to be attractive to viewers, readers and advertisers. Based on the GWI report in 2020, viewers are now often watching television content through streaming applications on their gadgets. This reflects the huge potential of the media market, which is projected to grow from $1.7 billion in 2020 to $2.6 billion in 2025, globally.
According to the e-Conomy SEA 2020 report, online media is one of the biggest GMV contributors to digital businesses in Indonesia. By 2020 its value has reached $4.4 billion, will grow to $10 billion by 2025 at a CAGR of 18%. The online media coverage here includes OTT services and digital media.
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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian