The millennial generation is certainly creative and tech-savvy. With the world revolving around technology, especially the large-scale usage of mobile phone applications, many young entrepreneurs have built their business foundation on digital applications and their customer-base has grown tremendously. Here, Top 10 of Asia takes a brief look at its list of top 10 young and inspiring Indonesian entrepreneurs (presented in random order) who are listed in Forbes and also well-known locally in Indonesia for their business success, innovativeness and also capability in garnering millions of customers locally and internationally.
Yohanes Sugihtononugroho
Yohanes Sugihtononugroho founded CROWDE, a peer-to-peer lending platform that enables farmers to raise their working capital from a crowd-lender with various schemes. CROWDE aims big to increase farmer’s welfare by empowering farmers to be agropreneurs, creating an efficient agriculture ecosystem, and be the trusted crowd-lending platform with the spirit of mutual cooperation. CROWDE empowers the farmers to understand the market better, give proper education to the ones who need understanding, and become the platform for the crowd to trust the farmers’ effort with various schemes with the spirit of mutual cooperation.
Reynold Wijaya
Reynold Wijaya established Modalku in 2016, a peer-to-peer lending platform in Indonesia. Modalku digitally connects ‘underserved’ yet creditworthy ministry of micro, small and medium enterprises in Southeast Asia with both retail and institutional lenders. Its business model enables small businesses to receive working capital financing for business growth with no collateral requirements. The platform also operates in Singapore and Malaysia. Modalku is currently registered and licensed by Financial Services Authority as provider of information technology-based lending services.
Gitta Amelia
Gitta Amelia is the founder of EverHaus, a company specialising in venture capital and it was established in 2017. EverHuas focuses on early stage investments. It became well-known after starting operation over the course of one year. The company invested in over 20 companies in Indonesia and all over Southeast Asia. It has assisted each of these companies to raise millions of dollars. Besides owning a venture capital company, Gitta also recently launched her own beauty brand called Secondate Beauty and thousands of the products were sold since the launch of her website.
Ferry Unardi
Ferry Unardi founded Traveloka, one of Southeast Asia’s online travel companies that offers a variety of travel needs under one platform such as selection of flights, hotels, trains, flight and hotel packages, attractions and activities, airport transports and buses. It has established partnerships with more than 100 international and domestic airlines. Traveloka also has the largest direct accommodation inventory that includes hotels, apartments, guest houses, homestays, villas and resorts. The company also provides more than 40 payment options for customers in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and the Philippines. The Traveloka mobile application is one of the most popular travel booking applications and it has been downloaded more than 30 million times.
Adamas Belva Devara and Iman Usman
Adamas Belva Devara and Iman Usman founded Ruangguru in 2014 and the company is a limited liability company engaged in the field of non-formal education which is established based on Indonesia’s applicable laws. It is the largest technology company in Indonesia that focuses on education-based services and the company provides a learning application that is well-known and utilised by more than 15,000 students and 300 teachers in Indonesia. The application enables students to learn through virtual classes, online exam platforms, subscriptions learning videos, private tutoring markets and other educational content that can be accessed through the web and Ruangguru applications.
Amanda Cole
Amanda Cole founded Sayurbox after quitting her job to set up her own farm. Sayurbox assists farmers to skip going to middlemen so they could enjoy fairer pricing for their goods. The company is a farm-to-table sourcing and distribution platform for fresh produce such as vegetables and fruit. Customers’ orders are delivered straight to farmers and there will be a 24-hour delivery time after harvest. It partners with 300 farms, serves more than 50,000 customers and makes 1,000 deliveries a day.
William Utomo and Winston Utomo
William Utomo and Winston Utomo are the founders of IDN Media and the company has over 250 staff. IDN is one of the leading media-tech and content platform companies and it was established in 2014. The company focuses on Indonesia’s millennials and Gen Z audience. It operates IDN Times, Popbela.com, Popmama.com, Yummy (a creative digital agency), IDN Creative (an event agency), IDN Event (a creator marketing agency) and IDN Creator Network. Majority of IDN’s readers access its content via mobile and it has over 50 million readers monthly.
Tyovan Ari Widagdo
Tyovan Ari Widagdo is multi-award-winning Indonesian entrepreneur who established Bahaso in 2015 and the company provides learning services to people who want to learn foreign languages in a more flexible way. Users are able to learn interactively online through audio and video. Bahaso provides online language classes with an exciting and flexible tutoring program through applications, websites, and messenger chats with quality tutors and it has over 100,000 users. He also founded Vemobo, a company that focuses on information technology.
Fransiska Hadiwidjana
Fransiska Hadiwidjana established Prelo, a company specialising in mobile e-commerce and it focuses on using environmentally-friendly technology. Its platform allows users to sell or rent-out their second-hand items. The majority of goods sold are fashion and cosmetics. Soon after, Prelo started selling other items such as gadgets and books. In addition, Prelo also provides private and rental services. Fransiska is also the co-founder of AugMI labs, an award-winning biomedical startup in Silicon Valley.
Hendra Kwik, Jefriyanto and Ricky Winata
Hendra Kwik, Jefriyanto and Ricky Winata are the founders of PT Payfazz Teknologi Nusantara, a financial technology development company which was established in 2016. Better known as PAYFAZZ, this technology company is an agency-based financial platform for people who do not own bank accounts. PAYFAZZ uses a security system in the form of GeoTrust SSL, User ID and Password to ensure its customers’ details are secured. It works with partners in Indonesia such as banks, Payment Point Online Bank providers, e-commerce companies, credit selling agents and other financial institutions. PAYFAZZ has served around 10 million customers and is the first Indonesian company to make it into the Y Combinator, a seed accelerator in the United States.