JAKARTA (TheInsiderStories) - Bonza, a big data analytics firm, has secured a US$2 million funding led by East Ventures with participation from Elev8.vc. This fresh capital will accelerate the startup’ vision to become a leading data platform company in Southeast Asia.
The new funding round comes a year after a seed fund in 2020 from East Ventures. In its first year of operation, the company managed to achieve profitability. Co-founders of the startup, Elsa Chandra and Philip Thomas, met in Traveloka but came from different teams.
At Traveloka, the two witnessed how big data models accelerated the speed and quality of insights to make data-driven decisions in the company. During their time in Traveloka, they saw an opportunity to help other companies in Southeast Asia to tackle their data challenges and use data more effectively for decision making, and decided to start Bonza.
“Elsa and Philip have executed it well in the past year, and we are excited to double down on Bonza and support them further,” said Willson Cuaca, co-founder and managing partner of East Ventures in a written statement released on Thursday (05/06).
“We are very excited to have East Ventures leading this round, with participation from Elev8.vc. This investment will be a stepping stone for us to build a world class engineering and data science team, accelerate our platform development and go-to-market expansion across Southeast Asia,” said Elsa Chandra, co-founder and CEO of Bonza.
Last year, East Ventures has announced the first closure of its newest fundraiser, which was targeted at $88 million. Global and regional financial institutions have joined as investors in the latest funding. According to CEO of Pavilion Capital, Tow Heng Tan, the venture capital’ position in Southeast Asia is very strategic to assist entrepreneurs in exploring their best potential. The same thing was conveyed by Partner of Adams Street Partners, Sunil Mishra.
The company co-founder and managing partner, Willson Cuaca, emphasized that their’ eight managed funds remain open to all sectors. Funding sizes have been deliberately kept below $100 million to keep the focus on early stage companies. East Ventures has the main goal of becoming the best asset class for its limited partners.
According to him, venture capital is still a relatively new asset class for investors in Southeast Asia. Several exits involving the company include the acquisition of Kudo by Grab in 2017, as well as the acquisition of Loket and Moka POS by GoJek.
Written by Editorial Staff, Email: theinsiderstories@gmail.com
