JAKARTA (TheInsiderStories) - A social commerce provider, KitaBeli has raised Series A funding US$10 million led by Go Ventures joined with AC Ventures and East Ventures, said the company today. The startup focuses on selling fresh products and fast moving consumer goods outside major cities in Indonesia.
The tech firm was launched in March 2020 in Jakarta and then expand to Solo in Central Java and Malang in East Java. Co-founder and CEO, Pratek Chaturvedi, said the new funding will be used to expand their operations in Java Island, grow the logistics network and develop its mobile applications. The provider claimed have grown 80 percent per month with an average installation cost of $0.10 a customer.
While, senior vice president at Go Ventures, Aditya Kumar, commented, “The prevalence of e-commerce outside major metro areas remains low in large part due to a lack of trust, poor product availability, and high logistics costs.”
Google–Temasek–Bain said in the latest report, Southeast Asia’ digital economy soaring to $100 billion in 2020, expanded 5 percent from 2019. Indonesia and Vietnam continued to grow at double-digit rates, but Singapore’ internet economy contracted 24 percent to $9 billion as the pandemic choked the travel sector, said the report.
“The coronavirus has brought about a permanent and massive digital adoption spurt,” wrote the report.
The report covered Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore and the Philippines showed, over the past four years, the number of internet users in the countries has increased by 100 million, most of them are youths, aged 15 to 19. In 2020, the region added 40 million new internet users, taking the total to 400 million.
The report added, the number implies 70 percent of the region’ population is now online. The e-commerce business its expecting grow 63 percent to $62 billion in 2020. It said, the region’ online industry is poised to triple to $309 billion in gross merchandise value by 2025.
With an 11 percent increase in online users, Southeast Asia become one of the world’ fastest growing internet markets, compared to around 4.7 billion internet users worldwide. In early report, Google – Temasek estimates, Indonesia’ digital economy could increases more than four times by 2025 to $100 billion. Beside e-commerce, online transportation sector is also considered attractive.
Recently, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members expressed commitment to synchronize regulations on e-commerce on each jurisdictions as part of an effort to strengthen the digital economy development in the bloc that is home to around 700 million population.
The five member countries have linked to the ASEAN Single Window, with objective to expedite cargo clearance and promote the organization economic integration by enabling the electronic exchange of border documents among the members. in 2019, The ASEAN Economic Community ratify the completion of the Digital Integration Framework Action Plan 2019 – 2025 to advance and overcome digital integration barriers in ASEAN.
Written by Editorial Staff, Email: theinsiderstories@gmail.com
