With US$1.5mil, Jojonomic ramps up for SEA expansion

• Eyeing expansion to Singapore, Malaysia & Thailand by end of the year
• Mobile-first focus will help adoption of digital reimbursement system

 

 

JAKARTA-based mobile reimbursement platform Jojonomic raised US$1.5 million (RM6.18 million) Series A round led by Maloekoe Ventures, with participation from Golden Gate Ventures, Fenox Venture Capital, and East Ventures.
 
The funding will help the fintech (financial technology) startup to expand its team, reach more customers in second-tier cities, and prepare for regional expansion.
 
“The Series A funding will help us ramp up our sales personnel in both the local and regional teams, as well as in our engineering team to make sure our system always performs at its best.
 
“Once our teams are ready, we will start market deepening our reach in more cities in Indonesia. Once we dominate this vertical, we will start our South-East Asia (SEA) expansion,” its chief executive officer (CEO) Indrasto Budisantoso (pic, above) tells Digital News Asia (DNA) in an email interview.
 
Jojonomic's clients in Indonesia include on-demand transportation platform Go-Jek, Lippo Group’s e-commerce arm MatahariMall, e-commerce leader Tokopedia, payment gateway company Veritrans, and retailer Lee Cooper.
 
According to research done by the startup, the potential market for Jojonomic is huge as 90% of SEA’s companies are still carrying out their reimbursement process manually.
 
“The technology developed by Jojonomic hits a particular pain point for companies, the expense reimbursement process. We believe that the business-to-business (B2B) software as a service (SaaS) system will be the future in both Indonesia and SEA,” Maloekoe Ventures’ co-founder and managing partner Adrien Gheur said in a statement.
 
Not only it will it help large businesses and corporations, but Jojonomic's solution can also help small and medium enterprises (SME) to go digital, said its investors.
 
“The SMEs in Indonesia and SEA are digitising rapidly, and what they need is a new solution to help them focus on business and make the digital transformation. Jojonomic solves this issue,” Golden Gate Ventures’ managing partner Vinnie Lauria added.
 
Indrasto claims that by using its automated reimbursement system, businesses can increase reimbursement efficiency by 70% and save up to US$400 per employee per year from potential manual reimbursement fraud.
 
With its current team of 26, Jojonomic is aiming to start its SEA expansion by the end of the year, eyeing neighbouring countries with a growing digital transformation focus such as Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand.

Mobile-first focus
The fintech startup secured its undisclosed seed funding from East Ventures in October last year, and was initially a free personal financial application, aimed at helping Indonesians manage their daily and monthly expenses better.
 
However, early this year, the startup tweaked its business strategy and shifted focus to offer premium and paid mobile reimbursement management systems for businesses.
 
The mobile-focus strategy landed Jojonomic a ticket to participate in the Google Launchpad Accelerator program in May, where startups received US$50,000 in equity-free funding, along with intense mentorship especially in mobile app development.
 
“Mobile is the screen that has the most interaction with users nowadays. Key decision makers spend more time away from their desks and more decisions are made over mobile,” Indrasto explained.
 
“It is inevitable that the way of doing business will evolve and involve more mobile in the coming future. Thus, mobile-first is the way to go to win the competition,” he added.
 
According to Indrasto, mobile-first will also help the adoption of digital reimbursement systems, which are still a challenge even in the digital era.
 
“Getting people to shift from their habit of doing reimbursements manually is not easy at all, our main competitor now is still paper and excel sheets.
 
“What we are trying to do is explain that digital reimbursement is easy and painless, can be made anytime, anywhere, even with your smart phones. Our main task is in educating the market."
 
Jojonomic still has its expense management feature for individuals offered free of charge. To be able to access its premium system and features, companies are charged from US$4 per user per month.
 
It also offers a fully automated integration with other financial and human resource management as well as accounting software such as SAP, Oracle, Xero, Zahir, Mandiri e-Cash, Jurnal, and Talenta.
 
 
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