Ula, New Startup From Indonesia That Gets Funds From Jeff Bezos' Company

JAKARTA – Recently, one of the Indonesian e-commerce companies, Ula, was reported to have received funding from the second richest person in the world, Jeff Bezos. Ula is a new startup in the country. Although still new, Ula has managed to attract top investors to spread its wings in Indonesia. Ula managed to raise funding worth 30 million US dollars (approximately Rp426 billion).

According to a TechCrunch report, Jeff Bezos has agreed to invest in Ula through family investment firm Bezos Expeditions. Bezos injected funds into Ula at a time when Amazon had not yet been able to enter Southeast Asia's largest market and had limited access to Indonesia.

However, until now Ula has not provided official confirmation to TechCrunch. Other well-known companies that poured funds into Ula were Tencent, B Capital, and Prosus Ventures as co-leads in this funding round. In addition, there are other big name companies such as Sequoia Capital, Quona Capital, and Lightpeed Ventures Partners. Ula targets to raise as much as 80 million US dollars.

The founder of e-commerce Amazon and rocket company Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos, has been named the richest person on earth by Forbes magazine since 2019. Bezos' wealth stream comes largely from Amazon's e-commerce. Bezos' total wealth is currently US$191.4 billion (approximately Rp2.717.88 trillion). The second richest person in the world, the Tesla and SpaceX boss reportedly overtook Bezos in the past week.

Ula focuses on solving small retail problems such as supply chain, working capital and inventory. The new startup runs a wholesale e-commerce marketplace to help store owners keep inventory and provide needed working capital.

For information, Ula was founded by Nipun Mehra, Alan Wong, and Derry Sakti, as well as Riky Tenggara. Nipun Mehra is a former Flipkart executive and former partner of Sequoia Capital India. Flipkart has become India's largest e-commerce funded by Amazon. Alan Wong has worked at Amazon, while Derry Sakti has worked at P&G Indonesia. Lastly, Riky Tenggara had a career in e-commerce Lazada and also aCommerce.