Digital ledger app BukuKas raises US$9m in pre-Series A round

BUKUKAS, a digital ledger app for micro small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), has raised US$9 million in a pre-Series A round to expand its product offering and build market share in Indonesia.

Investors in this round include Sequoia Capital India's Surge, Saison Capital, Speedinvest, S7V, January Capital and Cambium Grove Capital. (see amendment note)

This brings the total funding raised to US$12 million, with angel investors such as Kopi Kenangan's Edward Tirtanata, Pinelabs and Citrus pay's Amrish Rao, as well as KoinWorks Willy Arifin as one of its first backers.

Through digital bookkeeping, the BukuKas application provides Indonesian MSMEs with a platform to monitor their sales, profit and credit. It also allows merchants to gain better visibility on what drives their profits and cash flow, enabling them to actively improve their business processes. The app will also help to send WhatsApp reminders to customers when credit is due.

With the application, merchants can achieve up to 20 per cent cost reduction and save up to four hours per day through automatic bookkeeping processes, said BukuKas.

Krishnan Menon, its chief executive and co-founder, said: "The speed at which BukuKas has grown in the last eight months since launch has shown us that more than ever, Indonesian small businesses are ready to go digital. Seventy-three per cent of merchants are outside of tier-one cities today - and very few products and services are built for them. BukuKas is committed to reaching them, as they are the real Indonesia, the spine of our economy."

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The firm, which has over 800,000 small merchants and retailers on its platform, is committed to becoming a "one-stop-shop" for small businesses to manage their financial and business operations, and hopes to give business owners an "unprecedented degree of visibility, control and convenience", it said.

Christopher Zemina, principal at Speedinvest, one of the early investors in European neo-banking unicorn N26, said: "At Speedinvest, we focus a lot on innovative fintech startups that solve the problem of financial inclusion, at scale, across the globe. We are super excited by BukuKas' vision, early traction and execution by a very strong and driven team."

Amendment note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly listed one of the investors as Credit Saison. BukuKas has since corrected the press release. The article has been revised to reflect the change.