Ayoconnect Raises USD 10 Million In Funding, Ilham Habibie And Mandiri Capital Become Investors

JAKARTA - Digital financial platform Ayoconnect is said to have succeeded in obtaining Pre-Series B funding worth a total of 10 million US dollars or around Rp. 143 billion from a number of strategic investors.

Ayoconnect CEO Jakob Rost said the funding will be focused on company growth, recruitment, and product development, especially in building the Application Programming Interface (API) economy.

"We are very happy to welcome new investors and are grateful for the trust of our other investors," he said in a press statement, Wednesday, September 1.

According to Jakob, Ayoconnect's new investors this time include Mandiri Capital Indonesia and Patamar Capital.

Not only that, he also explained that Ilham Akbar Habibie (technopreneur as well as Ayoconnect's Strategic Advisor), Paul Bernard (ex-Goldman Sachs), Jeff Lin (iGlobe Partners), and several senior officials from financial institutions also invested in Ayoconnect.

"We hope to gain expertise and experience from them, so that they can expand their partnerships in the financial industry, both in the private and government sectors," he said.

Jakob added that his company is now one of the few corporations in Indonesia that has received investment from the two largest banks in Indonesia, namely Bank Mandiri and Bank BRI at the same time.

"Their presence as investors is a big support in our efforts to build a layer of infrastructure that allows interoperability between various Indonesian companies providing financial services, such as financial institutions, fintech and startups," he explained.

On the same occasion, CEO of Mandiri Capital Indonesia Eddi Danusaputro assessed this partnership as a mutually beneficial partnership in the open finance and open banking sectors in Indonesia.

“We are very enthusiastic about establishing a partnership together. Ayoconnect's vision to democratize open finance in Indonesia has solidified us to take a role in this investment," he said.

Similarly, Patamar Capital Partner Dondi Hananto said the collaboration was aimed at playing an important role in building a national API ecosystem.

"The presence of Ayoconnect accelerates the pace of opening access to quality financial services for people who have not been touched by formal financial services in Indonesia. We are very excited about this joint partnership and will continue to encourage innovation and acceleration in financial inclusion efforts in Indonesia," he said.

For information, API or application programming interface is an intermediary software that allows several applications or institutions to connect and talk to each other.

In this case, Ayoconnect connects financial information from a number of data collection points, so that partners can focus on serving their consumers while providing inclusive services for millions of Indonesians.

The role of this 4.0 technology company is also considered important in encouraging the expansion of access to financial products for the unbanked and underbanked people.