Indonesia's SOEs asked to aid home-grown start-ups
Indonesian President Joko Joko Widodo has asked state-owned enterprises (SOEs) along with their venture-capital arms to be more involved in aiding home-grown start-ups, hoping it can boost the country’s digital economic resilience amid the highly competitive tech-firm market.
Indonesian President Joko Joko Widodo. (Photo: VNA)
Jakarta (VNA) – Indonesian President JokoWidodo has asked state-owned enterprises (SOEs) along with theirventure-capital arms to be more involved in aiding home-grown start-ups, hopingit can boost the country’s digital economic resilience amid the highlycompetitive tech-firm market.
Many start-ups had been facing a high probability offailure, as around 80 – 90% of them went bust in their early stages, he told arecent event held by the SOEs Ministry.
He outlined two major reasons behind start-ups’ failureswere inability to respond to the market needs as well as running out of fundsbefore they could make significant growth.
He hoped that if these problems were encountered inIndonesia, then they could be addressed with the help of SOEs. This will be thetask of venture capitals and SOEs, so that Indonesia can connect its largeecosystems with each other and would not fail to enter the market, he stated.
The "e-Conomy SEA 2021" report released bytechnology-company Google, Singaporean state-owned investment firm TemasekHoldings and business-consultant Bain & Co estimate that Indonesia’sinternet economy will reach 70 billion USD in 2021, marking a 49% growth from 47billion USD in 2020.
The report also projects that the figure may double to 146billion USD in the next four years, signaling Indonesia’s strong presence inthe ASEAN region, as it will come on top of the digital-economy size comparedto its neighbouring countries.
SOEs Minister Erick Thohir said inthe same event that several SOEs have already begun forming their own venturecapitals, implying they were up to the tasks to help build the country’s owndigital ecosystem. State-owned lenders Mandiri and BRI, he said, hadestablished Mandiri Capital and BRI Ventures respectively, while the Indonesiancentral bank (BNI) was expected to follow in their footsteps./.
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Indonesian President Joko Joko Widodo. (Photo: VNA)
