Bukalapak confirmed an undisclosed Series B funding they received from PT Kreatif Media Karya (KMK Online), subsidiary of PT Elang Mahkota Teknologi Tbk. (EMTEK Group) yesterday (4/2). This would be EMTEK’s second maneuver this year after previously acquired Karir.com days earlier.
Sutanto Hartono, EMTEK Group’s CEO, commented about the funding, “We chose Bukalapak because of the likeliness of their vision and mission to ours. We saw their uniqueness and power in developing local ecosystem, which is the strongest by far. This fresh cash money investment is dedicated to Bukalapak’s growth, as we join the team as the managing strategic partner.”
Ever since its breakthrough three years ago, Bukalapak indeed focuses on empowering SMEs as it has successfully gathered 150.000 registered sellers so far. Regarding this EMTEK’s latest investment, Bukalapak’s CEO Achmad Zaky revealed that he will focus on allocating the money to recruit Indonesia’s best talents as well as execute more marketing campaigns.
Zaky said, “I believe that the investment in human is a must, hence it will be our focus. Hiring more local talents will drive the industry forward. That’s why investment in talents is one of our focus.”
“The second one would be marketing. I’m pretty sure that we can grow by marketing more actively. Therefore, our budget will go to marketing campaigns, both online and offline,” he added.
Zaky further explained that the marketing campaigns wouldn’t be all about ads, but also projects of educating people in order to reach even broader market, especially SMEs in villages and remote areas. He regarded this as ‘necessary to be done’ to let SMEs expanding to bigger market through online marketing.
“We will have a roadshow to areas to promote online marketing. We will, too, gradually approach communities and personal, for instance like inviting successful online sellers to share and inspire them selling online,” Zaky said.
“Currently, we are going for growth. Our dream is to turn Bukalapak into Indonesian pride,” he concluded.