Indonesia’s BRI Ventures launches new fund for growth-stage startups

Indonesia’s BRI Ventures is launching a new venture fund named Sembrani Nusantara (SN), the firm said today during a press conference. The investment arm of the country’s biggest state lender, Bank BRI, aims to raise IDR 300 billion (USD 21.2 million) for this fund.

Nicko Widjaja, CEO of BRI Ventures, said SN’s focus will be on local startups in their seed to growth stages, and that checks will be cut for seed funding and Series A investments.

“Our focus is to figure out which businesses have strong fundamentals. Fresh funds will be distributed for startups which have the product, can book revenue, and have a clear business strategy to achieve profit,” Widjaja said.

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With SN, BRI will be looking specifically at startups that work in five sectors, including education, agriculture and fisheries, retail, transportation, and health. Widjaja believes these sectors are the foundations of the startup ecosystem in Indonesia.

SN is BRI Ventures’ second investment fund. In July 2019, when the investment arm was established, it launched its first fund with a target raise of up to USD 250 million. BRI Ventures also plans to set up a joint fund with Grab that will have a corpus of USD 10 million.