Southeast Asian start-up sexier for investors

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com – Start-ups in Southeast Asia are getting more and more bady in the eyes of investors. This is apparent from the investment growth data published by Google-Temasek.

In the report, investor-invested investment to stimulate economic growth in Southeast Asia reached $ 9.1 billion (about 132 trillion rupees) in the first half of 2018.

This number has multiplied by 2.5 compared to the first half of 2017, for a value of 3.6 billion dollars (about 52 000 billion rupees). The growth recorded in the first half of 2018 almost matched the acquisition of investment in 2017, which reached $ 9.4 billion (about 136 trillion rupees).

While over a period of three years, namely the period 2015 – 2018, the total capital gained by startups in Southeast Asia would reach $ 24 billion (about Rp. 34.7 billion).

"It is estimated that throughout Southeast Asia, it will take about $ 40 billion to $ 50 billion (capital) to reach a digital economy of more than $ 200 billion," said Randy Jusuf, Executive Director. from Google Indonesia.

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"Three years have already yielded $ 24 billion (about 34.7 billion rupees), nearly half of what we need to build $ 200 billion in the digital economy in Southeast Asia. "he continued.

9 start, take the biggest part

Samuele Saini, Head of Strategy and Knowledge for Google Southeast Asia, said the bulk of the funding was injected into nine start-up Unicorn in Southeast Asia.

"It's the right time if you want to do it start-up, because there are a lot of investors, "added Samuele.

New start-up They are Bukalapak, Go-Jek, Grab, Lazada, Razer, Sea Group, Traveloka, Tokopedia and VNG, which absorb 16 billion US dollars (about 231 billion dollars) out of the 24 billion dollars of investment funds received.

Of the nine companies, Grab received the largest share, more than 6 billion US dollars (about 87 billion Rp.), And became a Southeast Asian start-up labeled décacorn, companies whose valuations exceed $ 10 billion (about 145 trillion rupees).

While three start-up others, namely Go-Jek, Lazada and Tokopedia, have managed to raise billions of dollars for additional investment funds.

"In the past, we did not think that small businesses would become unicornbut now it happens. So do not worry about the company unicorn in Indonesia, there are still opportunities to become décacorn", Added Samuele.

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Two start-up others, namely Razer and Sea Group, also plan to increase investment funds through the IPO program.

Razer has been listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange since November 2017 and Sea Group began trading on the New York Stock Exchange in October 2017.

Not just the boot unicorn, more than 2,000 digital businesses in Southeast Asia valued at less than US $ 1 billion, have invested nearly US $ 7 billion (around Rs 101 trillion) over the last three years.

Google calls companies with valuations between $ 10 million and $ 100 million, evolving very dynamically.