Alpha JWC Ventures announced one of its latest investments in tech sector: Series A funding with significant amount for tech/media startup Nusantara Technology. The fundraise is also participated by Insignia Ventures.
As millennials are becoming the biggest market in the world, more and more companies are targeting the young adults of today. Nusantara Technology, the latest startup to join Alpha JWC Ventures’ portfolio, is aiming to conquer that segment with three brands under its name: Yukepo,Keepo, and PlayingViral.
Led by Steven Wongsoredjo, Nusantara’s quest started with the company’s media arms: Yukepo.com and Keepo.me.
Steve Wongsoredjo, CEO of Nusantara Technology.
“We started with Yukepo for female readers and Keepo for more general millennial readers because we saw a huge potential in the Indonesian market back then,” Co-Founder and CEO Steven says. “What makes us different from other media outlets targeting millennials is our content: ours is better and original. While most similar media source their content from social media, we make our own. Each section — politics, lifestyle, gossips, etc. — has its own editor, illustrator, and videographer to make original and good content for the articles. We always use data to determine what to produce. Thus, believe it or not, our traffic is achieved organically.”
Nusantara created revenue through advertisement, content creation and digital strategy services, and within a year, Yukepo and Keepo were already profitable. But, the team wants to do more and be more: they want to become bigger than just a media company.
“My co-founders and I saw that if we ever wanted to be a billion-dollar company, we cannot rely solely on media business. We need to create a scalable tech product. We also see that millennials love interactive content, so we came up with PlayingViral,” Steven says.
PlayingViral is a salesforce for Southeast Asia that operates as lead management and generator, where users can create and run interactive content marketing, like surveys and quizzes. PlayingViral lets user create more engaging content to acquire customers effectively with limited effort: personalize their call-to-action, from following social media accounts to downloading apps; distribute the content across online media — including Yukepo and Keepo; and ultimately, gain insights using PlayingViral’s analytics tool. So far, the platform has been used by many corporates, including Singapore Airlines and Garuda Indonesia.
Designed not only for big corporates, PlayingViral is also aimed to help SMEs in getting better business leads. To date, PlayingViral has been used by multiple businesses in various sectors ranging from beauty, and property where PlayingViral is used for acquiring data, selling, and recruiting. Agents can use the platform to create content, track those who are interested in their content, provide better recruitment platform, and gather data seamlessly.
“We are going after a billion-dollar opportunities in these kinds of businesses in second tier cities,” Steven says.
To achieve this, Nusantara partnered up with Alpha JWC Ventures and received an undisclosed amount of Series A funding.
”One of our visions at Alpha JWC Ventures is to help Indonesian founders to excel in the global technology stage. We are impressed by the Founders’ bold vision and commitment to create a global product right from day one. We are excited to take part of this ambitious project and will do whatever we can to make this a success,” says Alpha JWC Ventures’ Co-Founder and Managing Partner Jefrey Joe.
Earlier this year, Nusantara Technology joined the highly-esteemed tech incubator Y-Combinator where they became the second Indonesian company and the first ever Indonesian startup in SaaS and online media. And since their graduation from the program, Nusantara’s traction has been growing significantly.
“We now have 10 to 15 million monthly visitors in total for Yukepo and Keepo, and now PlayingViral currently progressing expansion to Southeast Asia by initially serving Thailand market,” Steven says.
“We have high hopes for the company. We want Yukepo and Keepo become the top media for millennials in Indonesia, and again, we want to be a technology focused company. In the long term, we want to be a cloud and SaaS company that can solve SMEs’ problems with our end-to-end digital tools, and to expand globally as well.”
Nusantara Technology is a SaaS and media group created by Indonesians for millennial. We believe that the youthful Indonesian generation has the potential to make a positive impact on Indonesia. Therefore, Nusantara Technology is responsible for shaping the mentality of the next generation by providing content and technology that will bring Indonesia to the forefront of innovation. Nusantara Technology is building Salesforce for Southeast Asia starting from Indonesia and BuzzFeed for millennial, in just one year the company turns to become profitable. Nusantara Technology is the first Indonesian start-up in SaaS and online media industry that got accepted to Y-Combinator in Mountain View. To see more about Nusantara Technology: www.nusantara.technology
