THE 50 HOTTEST FINTECHS

MARCH 2019 • VOLUME 10 ISSUE 3

WWW.FORBESINDONESIA.COM

THE
UNICORN
BREEDER
ALPHA JWC
VENTURES
IS SETTING A BENCHMARK
IN THE VC INDUSTRY

RP 60,000
Contents MARCH 2019

10 | FACT & COMMENT // Steve Forbes

The euro how to make it great

17 | MARKETING INSIGHTS // Hermawan Kartajaya

OMNI Human: Orchestrating Your Passions

18 | UPDATES
Sinar Mas and Oriente Partners in P2P Lending;
BP and AKR Announced Joint-venture

20 | UPDATES
East Ventures Invests in The Fit Company;
IFC invests $275 million on Trans Corp’s Projects

22 | LEGAL VIEW // Eddy Leks

Awaiting the Agrarian Law Reform

24 | SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT // Scott Younger

Dealing with Disasters

FINANCIAL REVOLUTION
28 | GUEST COLUMN // Alexander Rusli
Mobile Payments Will Lead Indonesia’s Digital
Transformation

30 | THE UNICORN BREEDER

Alpha JWC Ventures is setting a benchmark in
the VC Industry.
BY ARDIAN WIBISONO

38 | FINANCING FUTURE
Could fintech help elevate higher education in
Indonesia?
BY ULISARI ESLITA

40 | SIMPLE WORK
Jojonomics is taking over employees’ administrative
work so they can focus on what matters.
BY MARELLA PUTRI

42 | REDEFINING BANKING
DBS Indonesia is redefining banking experiences in
digital era.
BY ESTER CHRISTINE NATALIA
COVER PHOTOGRAPHS: AHMAD ZAMRONI/HKV FOR FORBES INDONESIA

4 | FORBES INDONESIA MARCH 2019

 TO BREAK THE RULES,
YOU MUST FIRST MASTER
THEM.

THE VALLÉE DE JOUX. FOR MILLENNIA A HARSH,

UNYIELDING ENVIRONMENT; AND SINCE 1875 THE
HOME OF AUDEMARS PIGUET, IN THE VILLAGE OF
LE BRASSUS. THE EARLY WATCHMAKERS WERE
SHAPED HERE, IN AWE OF THE FORCE OF NATURE
YET DRIVEN TO MASTER ITS MYSTERIES THROUGH
THE COMPLEX MECHANICS OF THEIR CRAFT. STILL
TODAY THIS PIONEERING SPIRIT INSPIRES US TO
CONSTANTLY CHALLENGE THE CONVENTIONS OF
FINE WATCHMAKING.

ROYAL OAK
CHRONOGRAPH
IN YELLOW GOLD
AUDEMARSPIGUET.COM

JAKARTA: PLAZA SENAYAN · PLAZA INDONESIA |

SURABAYA: TUNJUNGAN PLAZA 4

MARCH 2019 FORBES INDONESIA | 5

Contents MARCH 2019

Eka Tjipta Widjaja,

founder of Sinar
Mas group, one of
country’s largest
conglomerates, has
LEADERBOARD passed away at the
age of 98.
26 | DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
Eka Tjipta Widjaja was one of the most successful businessman
in the country. He founded the Sinar Mas group, years ago and
turned it into Indonesia’s largest conglomerates. And now, the
family’s next generation is taking the group to a new level.
26
BY ULISARI ESLITA

46 | 30 UNDER 30 EUROPE 2019

From a tonic-water tycoon to a 3-D-printing top dog,
our annual roundup of the Continent’s brightest young
entrepreneurs and innovators.

TECHNOLOGY
48 | SMART KIOSK
Warung Pintar empowers micro-entrepreneurs
for digital inclusion.

42 40
BY ALEX KONRAD

50 | GOOGLING BLOCKCHAIN
In the late 1990s, Google transformed the Web by creating a
fast, accurate and easy-to-use search engine. THE 50 HOTTEST FINTECHS
BY MICHAEL DEL CASTILLO
54 | WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE…
Ryan Williams is one of the most successful 30 Under 30 honorees
ever, a tech founder reinventing real estate investing via Cadre—
and building a $160 million personal fortune in the process.
BY NATHAN VARDI

64 | DATA’S CARTOGRAPHERS
Two philosophers are using machine learning and artificial
intelligence to create a real-time map of the global economy, and
the world’s largest financial firms are lining up at its door.
BY ANTOINE GARA

68 | COMMON SENSE PROPHET

Growing up in a two-bedroom Bronx apartment shared by 12 family
members, Wendy De La Rosa learned to make every dollar count.
BY KRISTIN STOLLER

PHILANTHROPY
72 | REALITY CHECK // James S. Kallman
Excess Fat is Bad for You

74 | THE PRINCESS OF THE DUMP

Resa Boenard has dedicated her life empowering children growing
up on the largest landfill in Southeast Asia.
BY MADDIE MANWARING

FORBES LIFE
48 76 | THE EYE

6 | FORBES INDONESIA MARCH 2019

 SIDELINES

PUBLISHER Jusuf Wanandi

EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
IT’S ALL ABOUT NUMBERS
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Taufik Darusman
BY TAUFIK DARUSMAN
SENIOR EDITORS Ardian Wibisono, Ulisari Eslita,
Yessar Rosendar taufik@forbesindonesia.com

I
SENIOR WRITER Ester C. Natalia
WRITER Marella Putri n 2015, three young Indonesian professionals with vast experience in the
SENIOR GRAPHIC DESIGNER Hidayat Abubakar
realm of finance got together and set up Alpha JWC Ventures, an invest-
GRAPHIC DESIGNER Dennis A. Pratama
PRODUCTION MANAGER Mudafid Riyanto
ment company that focuses on technology-based start-ups. The rest, as it is
VIDEOGRAPHER Wijayanto often said, is history. Well, not quite—four years on it continues to embark on its
EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT Hanna Azuraa already illustrious journey and is set to become a formidable business force.
A venture capital company, Alpha JWC Ventures has been doing well and all
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
MANAGING DIRECTOR Roger Finnie
signs show it promises to be doing even better in the future. No less noteworthy
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Tanti Jumiati is the founders’ sense of glowing optimism as they extend the company’s reach
SENIOR EVENT & SALES MANAGER Bardan A. Sayid beyond national borders to, in more recent times, Vietnam. And they have the
ASST. MANAGER EVENTS & COMMUNICATIONS numbers – and the right ecosystem—on which to base their upbeat sentiment.
Rio Zikrizal
With a population of 260 million people and as the region’s largest online
EVENTS & SALES EXECUTIVE Melissa Tunggadjaja
MARKETING SUPPORT Josephine Hanna M. retail market, Indonesia is in the crosshairs of private investors. It is estimated
CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Seli Widiati there will be over 139 million internet users by 2022 and that members of the
CIRCULATION MANAGER Habibie Hasanuddin middle- and upper-class over the next five years will rise from 63 to 128 million.
ACCOUNTING MANAGER Hendra Gunawan
Meanwhile, smartphone penetration is set to increase in the same period
ACCOUNTING SUPERVISOR Inge Stephanie
ACCOUNTING EXECUTIVES Tjhin Anna
– from 85 million to 148 million – as the country’s online shopping base jumps
ACCOUNTING STAFF Aldina Anggraini from 11 million to 42 million browsing customers. With start-ups showing huge
potential, investors—both domestic and foreign—are descending with lucrative
PT WAHANA MEDIATAMA
cash injections to fuel business growth across the region and beyond.
PRESIDENT DIRECTOR Millie Stephanie Lukito
VICE PRESIDENT DIRECTOR Dewi Victoria
In a nutshell, a venture capital (VC) firm provides funding to the private
PRESIDENT COMMISSIONER Jonathan Tahir sector in exchange of equity or shares. If banks lend money and get paid
back with interest and are not involved in the management (and do not hold
FORBES MEDIA LLC
CHAIRMAN & EDITOR IN CHIEF Steve Forbes equity), VC firms take part in making strategic decisions that may impact a
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Michael Federle company’s future. So, VC firms, basically, provide investment funds to start-
CHIEF CONTENT OFFICER Randall Lane ups and at the same time obtain equity stakes in them.
CEO/ASIA William Adamopoulos
The first venture capital company in Indonesia is PT Bahana Pembinaan
EDITOR, FORBES ASIA Tim Ferguson
SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, FORBES ASIA Tina Wee
Usaha Indonesia (BPUI), a Finance Ministry-Bank Indonesia joint venture es-
tablished in 1973. Nothing much has been heard from BPUI since 1993, though,
when its subsidiary, PT Bahana Artha Ventura (BAV), set up operations in sev-
eral provinces to finance small businesses. Typically, the private sector picked
up where the state left after recognizing the huge potential VC business holds.
MARCH 2019 — VOLUME 10 NUMBER 3 Today, some 60 VC companies operate in Indonesia, with funding said
to come mostly from China, Japan and the U.S. Many have linked up with
FORBES INDONESIA is published by PT Wahana Mediatama under
a license agreement with Forbes LLC, 60 Fifth Avenue, New York, tech start-ups, bringing with them sophisticated technology laced with
financial savviness. Indonesia’s rising fintech and healthcare sectors are
New York 10011. “FORBES” is a trademark used under license from
FORBES LLC. ©2010 PT Wahana Mediatama • ©2010 FORBES LLC,
as to material published in the U.S. Edition of FORBES. All Rights
Reserved. ©2009 FORBES LLC, as to material published in the edition said to be the main targets as the middle-class market has shown a pro-
of FORBES ASIA. All Rights Reserved.
FORBES INDONESIA is published monthly, 12 times per year.
pensity for tech-enabled products and services.
Copying for other than personal use or internal reference or of articles
or columns owned by FORBES INDONESIA without written permission
President Joko Widodo, a former businessman in his own right, wishes
of FORBES INDONESIA is expressly prohibited. to see 1,000 new digital start-ups worth $10 billion by 2020. It is a long shot
CONTACT INFORMATION indeed, but with JWC and the likes in the horizon, it is not implausible for
Forbes Indonesia: Mayapada Tower 1, 8th Floor, Suite-03 A
Jalan Jendral Sudirman Kav. 28, South Jakarta 12920. the president’s vision to become a reality. F
Tel: (021) 522 6828, Fax: (021) 522 7208.
Website: www.forbesindonesia.com CORRECTION:
: Forbes Indonesia Magazine : @forbes_id : forbesindonesia
Subscriber Enquiries: Please contact Circulation Division. Email:
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8 | FORBES INDONESIA MARCH 2019

 FACT & COMMENT
“With all thy getting, get understanding”
THE EURO
HOW TO MAKE IT GREAT
BY STEVE FORBES, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
THIS YEAR marks the 20th anni-
versary of the euro’s introduction,
and not many champagne bottles
have been uncorked in celebration.
Since 2008, the EU has been beset
by economic crises that have dulled
any luster the new currency had.
Too bad. Had Europeans un-
derstood the proper principles of
monetary policy, the euro would be
a resounding success, doing for par-
ticipating EU countries just what
the dollar has done for the U.S.—
a common currency that enormously facilitates
prosperity-creating investment and commerce. But
this extraordinary creation has been bedeviled by
profound misunderstandings that could ultimately
threaten its very existence.
Many critics moan that the euro has prevented
Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland and others from
using devaluations to help their economies recover
from terrible contractions. Still others carp that the
euro enabled Germany to rack up big trade surplus-
es without fear of having to revalue its currency, as
previously would have happened. The biggest con-
demnation has been that the euro is doomed unless
the EU has a united financial and banking regula-
tory system as well as a united fiscal/budgetary sys-
tem.
These and other negative assessments are off base:
• Prosperity. The euro did make it easier for capi-
tal to flow across borders, thereby reducing costs
of exchanging individual currencies and hedg-
ing against the risks of the currencies’ fluctuat-
ing against each other. However, the Continent’s
chronic subpar economic performance didn’t im-
prove as much as had been expected because the
problems are structural: excessive taxation and
regulation, particularly with regard to inflexible la-
bor practices. When Germany made some labor and
pension-rule reforms in the early 2000s, the coun-
10 | FORBES INDONESIA MARCH 2019
try’s economy markedly improved.
• The euro is a straitjacket. One of
the most pernicious myths afflicting
current economic policymaking is
that devaluations are a great way to
boost a troubled economy. Exports
suddenly become cheaper, goes this
happy talk, thereby ginning up over-
seas sales. An artificially enlarged
money supply will stimulate activ-
ity. But the reality is this: No state
in history ever devalued its way to
strength and prosperity. An unstable
currency hurts productive investment and, worse,
misdirects capital. Have we forgotten the housing
bubble, whose root cause was a cheapening dollar?
Nonetheless, a host of economists lament that
countries such as Greece and Italy can’t devalue
their currencies since they’re tied to the euro. Every-
one should rejoice that this is the case. Otherwise,
Greece would have become the EU’s version of Ven-
ezuela, and Italy’s lira would resemble Argentina’s
chronically shrinking peso. (The state of Illinois is in
severe financial straits, but no one talks about it leav-
ing the “U.S. dollar zone” to cope with its woes.)
• The euro can’t work without a single, Europe-
wide regulatory and tax/budget arrangement.
Nonsense. A country can use any currency it wants.
Panama, Ecuador, El Salvador and Timor-Leste
(East Timor) directly use the U.S. dollar. Coun-
tries such as Costa Rica allow the dollar to be used
alongside their own national currencies. The euro
is legal tender in Monaco and Vatican City. Numer-
ous nations employ currency boards to rigidly link
their money to a hard currency, such as the dol-
lar or the euro. (Under a currency board, the local
currency is backed 100% by, say, the dollar.) Hong
Kong has done this with the greenback since the
early 1980s. Bulgaria has done the same thing with
the euro for more than 20 years. Several countries
in Africa are pegged to the euro.
FACT & COMMENT
Needless to say, in none of these
cases are budgets, taxes, government
spending and financial regulations
coordinated with the U.S. or the EU.
• The euro will eventually fail
because it obliges Germany to
bail out profligate countries like
Greece. No, it won’t, and no, it
doesn’t. Back in the 1970s Wash-
ington refused to bail out New York
City when it was on the verge of
bankruptcy, even though they share
a common currency.
The euro would do just fine if au-
thorities took to heart the following
fundamental but out-of-fashion truths:
• Money is not an instrument for
guiding an economy. It isn’t simi-
lar to the steering wheel of a car.
Attempts to misuse it in this way re-
tard economic progress. Countries
with stable, trustworthy money
always do better than those with
weak currencies. Always.
Too many times American and
Don’t Miss This New, Illuminating Podcast
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Forbes, with new episodes airing Sunday
evenings. We’ll give you an advance
look at important trends. Also, in an era
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ever more information—and so much of
it suspect—this show will provide the
analyses, insights and overviews you
need to get a perspective on what’s
Wealth-Creating Cruise
Give yourself a fantastic treat this
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peerless investment insights from
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12 | FORBES INDONESIA MARCH 2019
STEVE FORBES
Be sure to watch the riveting
and illuminating one-hour
documentary airing on PBS
In Money We Trust?, which
is based on the book Money:
How the Destruction of the
Dollar Threatens the Global
Economy—and What We Can Do
About It, co-authored by yours
truly and Elizabeth Ames. For
more information, go online to
inmoneywetrust.org.
European central banks have tried
to use monetary policy to overcome
structural barriers to growth.
• Money measures value the way
happening in what otherwise seems
a cacophonous sea of confusion. At
the heart of each program will be an
interview with a person whose story and
observations will be of keen interest as
well as instructional. Guests will include
Jamie Kern Lima, whose startup, IT
Cosmetics, spectacularly and successfully
broke ironclad rules on how the beauty
industry operates; Purdue University
July 17 and takes us across the Baltic
Sea for visits to Helsinki, St. Petersburg,
Tallinn (a global high-tech powerhouse),
Warnemünde (the captivating gateway
to Berlin) and Copenhagen, and winds
up in Amsterdam on July 29.
Forbes’ editor-at-large and global
futurist, Rich Karlgaard, will host you
a clock measures time. Money
works best when it has a fixed value,
just as markets work best with fixed
weights and measures.
• The best way to achieve a stable,
trustworthy currency is to tie it to
a fixed weight of gold. Contrary to
myth, this no more restricts the size
of an economy than the 12 inches in
a foot restricts the size of a building
a contractor may wish to construct.
Four thousand years of experience
have proven that a gold standard
works better than anything else.
Robert Mundell, the Nobel Prize-
winning economist regarded as the
euro’s godfather, believed that his
conception would lead to a stronger,
more prosperous Europe and would
become a global alternative to the
dollar that would force the authori-
ties of both currencies to pursue
sound monetary policies. He never
imagined that both would remain in
the thrall of funny-money theorems.
president Mitch Daniels, who is shaking
up higher education by actually reducing
costs and improving curriculum quality
for students in a sector in which expenses
go up relentlessly; and famed Fixer Upper
couple Chip and Joanna Gaines, who
will share their hard-earned wisdom on
entrepreneurship, media and family.
You’ll find this podcast informative,
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and our incomparable investment
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happenings.
To reserve your spot, go online to
cruises.moneyshow.com/the-32nd-
forbes-cruise-for-investors or call
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MARKETING INSIGHTS HERMAWAN KARTAJAYA
HERMAWAN KARTAJAYA IS THE FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN OF MARKPLUS, INC., ONE OF SOUTHEAST ASIA’S LEADING MARKETING AND PROFESSIONAL SERVICES
FIRMS. IN 2003, HE WAS RANKED AMONG THE “50 GURUS WHO HAVE SHAPED THE FUTURE OF MARKETING” BY THE CHARTERED INSTITUTE OF MARKETING IN THE U.K.
OMNI HUMAN:
ORCHESTRATING
YOUR PASSIONS
THE 91st ACADEMY
Awards will soon be pre-
sented, amid intense fasci-
nation and global fascina-
tion. Oscars, as an event,
are not only anticipated by
the global film fraternity
but as movies are inspired
from our lives, the awards
also hold strong cultural rel-
evance as an indicator of public behavior.
This year, the Oscars are no less vibrant. Much before
the event, there has been anticipation on who is going to be
the hosts, and of course, predictions of winners in each cat-
egory. Interestingly, even though films have inspired sev-
eral cool techs – from Star Trek-inspired mobile phones to
voice-based operating systems, and the sci-fi movies con-
tinue to explore future technologies in the industrial era
4.0 and even 5.0, the most notable and talked-about movies
in Oscars this year are Roma and The Favourite.
Both films are period dramas. The Favourite took
set in 18th Century while Roma from 1970s Mexico –
even made in black-and-white. There is no end to the
imagination of how sophisticated technologies can be
shown in movies, but these two movies tell stories about
human nature and values. The Favourite tells the story
of the personal and governing struggles of an England
Queen, while Roma follows the lives of housekeeping
women in a middle-class Mexico family.
The attention of human aspects of our lives, as narrat-
ed by these movies, is what I also identify in my new book,
Planet OMNI: The New Yin Yang of Business. The term I
use to describe this is OMNI Human. Because, it is indeed
in these times of increasingly sophisticated technology,
that the human aspect of our lives needs to be more visible
and explored. But in doing that, we, as humans, must also
stay abreast with the ever-changing environment around
us. And what is it that makes us OMNI Human?
To answer that question, I like to bring up the “four
passions” of an OMNI Human: Passion for Knowledge,
Passion for Business, Passion for Service, and Passion for
People. These four passions, when intertwined with one
another in individuals, give rise to behaviors that may
PASSION FOR
KNOWLEDGE
THINKER +
PRACTITIONER
LEARNING +
SHARING
PASSION PASSION
FOR OMNI HUMAN FOR
BUSINESS SERVICE
WORK +
PLAY
INDIVIDUAL+
SOCIAL
PASSION FOR
PEOPLE
seem paradoxical, but can actually be synergized (see
figure). The individuals who can achieve this synergy be-
tween different paradoxes that arise from the various pas-
sions, can be called OMNI Humans.
Work + Play: This is the first paradox in today’s times
when we are always connected, the boundaries of work
time and play time are blurring. In fact, the rise of gig and
creative economy, co-working spaces, and flexible work-
ing hours, are all manifesting how work and play are no
longer as isolated. Research has even suggested that gam-
ing can improve productivity at work. The key is to bal-
ance both aspects of work and play.
Thinker + Practitioner: Thought leaders in today’s
world are increasingly coveted for their ground-breaking
ideas and thoughts, but without practitioners to follow
the due course, these ideas will not materialize or reach
their potential. You can’t be a practitioner alone; you also
need to be a thinker to be our best self at every aspect of
your life. Similarly, you can’t just think, you must act on it.
Learning + Sharing: As self-explanatory as that
sounds, the simple idea is that learning without sharing
will not bring desired results. In an era of shortening skill
lifecycles and fast evolving technology, it is important
to remain on the learning curve, and as you do that, it is
equally important to share that knowledge with others.
Individual + Social: This paradox relates to the deep-
seated vision that you may have as an individual, to accom-
plish something, and you must do so, living in the social
environment around you, fraught with challenges and
limitations, but opportunities and wisdom. As an individu-
al, you must find a purpose, supported by a strong commit-
ment, but such a purpose should not be personal ambition
but accompanied by care and compassion for society.
These paradoxes, when synergized, and combined
with the various passions can help an individual be-
come OMNI Human. F
MARCH 2019 FORBES INDONESIA | 17
Updates
SINAR MAS AND ORIENTE
PARTNER IN P2P LENDING
INDONESIAN conglomerate
Sinar Mas Group partners with
Hong Kong-based financial service,
Oriente, in launching their peer-to-
peer lending platform named Fin-
BP AND AKR ANNOUNCED JOINT VENTURE
UK-based oil and gas company BP,
announced its joint venture with
Indonesia’s leading logistics, supply
chain and infrastructure company
AKR Corporindo. Under their newly-
set company, Aneka Petroindo Raya
(APR) - which will operate under the
name BP AKR Fuels Retail is foreseen
to open around 350 gas stations
across Indonesia over the next 10
years. At their press conference last
February they launched the first four
stations which are located in Cibubur,
Jababeka, Serpong, and Bintaro. “We
are planning to set up to 20 more
fuel stations this year and 35 fuels
18 | FORBES INDONESIA MARCH 2019
mas (PT Oriente Mas Sejahtera). Fol-
lowing the beta version launched a few
months ago, the joint-venture officially
launched the mobile application in
mid February. Headed by Peter Lydian
stations every year,” says Peter Molloy,
President Director of APR.
To make their service stands out from
other stations, BP is also partnering with
various range of local businesses includ-
ing convenience store chain Alfamart,
SiTepat-operated motorcycle workshop
Castrol Bike Point, local coffee chain
Toko Kopi Tuku and Martabak Orins.
Prior to that, AKR Corporindo and Air
BP set a joint venture company named Air
BP-AKR Aviation to develop aviation fuel
business in Indonesia. As many are aware,
President Joko Widodo demanded Per-
tamina, state-owned oil and gas company,
to lower aviation fuel (avtur) price, due
ESTER C. NATALIA & MARELLA PUTRI
as the President Director, Finmas
aims to provide easier access to
affordable and secure credit, con-
sequently contributing to spread fi-
nancial literacy and inclusion. The
partnership will also expect to cre-
ate over a thousand jobs in 2019.
They are particularly targeting
millions of underserved consum-
ers and SMEs in Indonesia who
do not have bank accounts, let
alone access to banking or finan-
cial services. Through Finmas,
people will be able to apply for
credit anytime, such as for educa-
tion tuition, household expenses,
emergency, or when they need
business capital. Consumers have
full control as they can monitor
the status of their loan application
and payment schedule.
Oriente itself was founded in
2017 by former founder of Skype
Geoffrey Prentice and founder
of LU.com, Hubert Tai; to help
improving financial inclusion for
underserved population in devel-
oping countries.
to the high price of airline ticket. Per-
tamina, as the sole supplier of avtur
at Soekarno-Hatta airport, would be
given two options: to lower the price
or to let the government allowing new
players to supply the fuel.
Aside from BP-AKR joint ven-
ture, along with Pertamina, AKR
Corporindo was appointed by the
Downstream Oil and Gas Regulatory
Agency (BPH Migas) to distribute
gasoline and diesel fuels across
the country since 2010. In line with
that, AKR then set up 130 gas sta-
tions all across Indonesia that sell
subsidized fuel.
Updates
EAST VENTURES INVESTED IN THE FIT COMPANY
EAST VENTURES invested an undisclosed seed
funding to a wellness startup The Fit Company. The
investment will support The Fit Company’s efforts in
building a technology-enabled ecosystem for wellness-
oriented products and services.
The Fit Company is a holding company focuses on
active and healthy lifestyle products. Currently, the
company has five business lines namely fitness tech
distributor Kredoaum, microgym 20Fit, conventional
gym Fitstop, healthy food restaurant Fit Lokal, and
healthy instant noodles made from konjac Fitmee.
“Currently, no one in the market is addressing the
issue of active lifestyle in a holistic way. It’s either
they provide only training or only food, but never
the whole pipeline. With this knowledge, the idea of
combining all of our products and services into one
ecosystem came up,” says The Fit Company CEO Jeff
Budiman in a statement.
Willson Cuaca, managing partner in East Ven-
tures, explained that there is a big potential in Indo-
nesian young consumer population who spend more
on discretionary items. They see that this kind of
new consumption behavior creates a huge oppor-
IFC INVESTED $275 MILLION ON TRANS
CORP’S PROJECTS
International Finance Corporation (IFC), member of the
World Bank Group and the largest financial institution
focusing on encouraging private sector engagement in
emerging markets, made their first investment to Indone-
sia’s Trans Corpora (Trans Corp), a subsidiary of Chairul
Tanjung’s CT Corpora (CT Corp). The agreement on loan
package worth $275 million was signed in mid February,
and will be used to support the growth of CT Corp’s opera-
tion in retail, tourism, and property all over Indonesia.
Trans Corp plans to add more retail stores in 25 cities
by 2025 in which its operation is expected to develop local
supply chains and open 30,000 new jobs. By working with
over 6,000 distributors majorly consisted of SMEs, an addi-
tion of 23,000 indirect jobs is also expected in the sector of
farming and distribution.
The investment on the tourism sector followed the
20 | FORBES INDONESIA MARCH 2019
tunity for a new ecosystem, especially in the health
and wellness sector.
“As Indonesia’s infrastructure for on-demand
and O2O platform has been solid, it could expand the
growth in this category by offering holistic products
and services: activity, FMCG, tools and equipment, and
ready to eat F&B in one platform. We believe The Fit
Company team has the right vision and string execu-
tion capability to unlock Indonesia’s wellness economy
potential,” Willson said in an official statement.
preceding $300 million loan by World Bank to Indonesia in
October 2018, to support government’s strategic priority
in developing the national tourism sector. By working with
global hospitality entity Accor, Trans Corp plans to develop 30
new hotels with almost 6,000 rooms across the archipelago.
Lastly, to solve Indonesia’s housing deficit for the middle-
income population, the Group will build more than 10,000
affordable apartment in various areas. Further addressing its
concern in the property sector, Trans Corp is also encourag-
ing resource-efficient buildings, valuing at least $275 million,
COURTESY OF EAST VENTURES
which meet IFC’s standard for green building named EDGE
(Excellence in Design for Greater Efficiencies).
The partnership between IFC and CT Corp was estab-
lished since October 2018 upon the signing of Memorandum
of Understanding by CEO of IFC Philippe Le Houerou and
Founder and Chairman of CT Corp, Chairul Tanjung.
 tda_luxury_toys www.tda.co.id

tda.luxurytoys@gmail.com

Address Jl. Kramat Pela Raya No.31, Kebayoran Baru, Jakarta selatan 12130
LEGAL VIEW EDDY LEKS
EDDY M. LEKS IS THE MANAGING PARTNER OF LEKS & CO, A MULTI-SERVICES LAW FIRM BASED IN JAKARTA.

AWAITING THE AGRARIAN

LAW REFORM
THE GOVERNMENT’S Land disputes are related to other factors such
plan to revise the current as land administration. A solid land administration
agrarian law – authorized will hugely reduce the number of land disputes. Ac-
in 1960 – has taken center cording to the Ministry of Agrarian and Spatial Plan-
stage lately, with officials ning, the root of land dispute is ownership proof and
saying the bill will be pro- inequality in land possession. Minister Sofyan Djalil
mulgated before the elec- noted that most disputes are among individuals,
tions in April. The question reaching 56.2% (6,071 cases) of all land disputes in
is whether the government Indonesia. Ambiguity on the certainty over land own-
and legislators will be able ership leads to unlawful land possession. Squatters,
to agree on the amendment on such tight schedule. for example, often consider the land they inhabit is
Professor Maria SW Sumardjono of University of theirs. This creates enormous problems in land pro-
Gajah Mada has commented that amending the agrar- curement for projects.
ian law is sensible to the extent that the land law car- Legal certainty on land ownership may be ob-
ries the spirit of the constitution’s article 33 paragraph tained cross Indonesia by filing a claim, after which
(3), especially on the phrase “(to provide) as much as a land certificate is issued. The latter is being under-
possible the prosperity of the people.” She further said taken by the government and is worthy of praise. The
that the proposed new time limitation provi-
norms must be support- sion needs to be abso-
ed by comprehensive
Minister Sofyan Djalil noted that lute and unassailable.
research to avoid dis- most disputes are among individuals, Therefore the regula-
tortions and contesta- reaching 56.2% (6,071 cases) of all tion on title insurance
tions. I think those are for the claimant, if the
crucial advice for the
land disputes in Indonesia. claimant wins a legal
government and legis- case, is significant.
lators as it is pointless to revise the existing law if the Limitation on land ownership must be regulated
new law makes it harder for the state to attain its goal by law, and not only in the ministerial level. Recog-
of creating prosperity for the people. nition of customary land must be stipulated un-
Some issues in the current agrarian law that needs der the law to clear the status of unregistered land
to be addressed are, among others, those related to legal and unlawful land possession. Land reform must be
certainty of land ownership, recognition and assess- implemented thoroughly with a clear schedule and a
ment on customary land right, unregistered land, land strong initiative by the government.
reform, limit on land area ownership for building and Looking at the massive land disputes among indi-
development, dispute settlements, unlawful land occu- viduals, the government should consider this matter
pation, land procurement, and land administration. as a central issue. The people, especially the farmers,
Legal certainty is a critical matter if we wish to see must have enough land for them to cultivate. Land re-
more foreign investment. Unregistered land and rec- form is highly interconnected to social justice.
ognition and assessment on customary land right are Indonesia should draw lessons from more than
highly related and pertain to unlawful land possession. 50 years of the current agrarian law. So many issues
Land reform is highly important to distribute justice have arisen, so many thoughts have been given, but
to the people, especially farmers. There is still no limit the commitment by the government (and legislators)
for land development despite the provisions on loca- is not sufficiently firm. The government must ensure
tion license. There needs to be a clear limit on land that the proposals to amend the existing law will
owned by an individual(s) or entity (ies). The current achieve the constitution’s goal, namely prosperity of
one only deals with agricultural land. the people, not individuals. F

22 | FORBES INDONESIA MARCH 2019

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
SCOTT YOUNGER IS A DIRECTOR OF PT NUSANTARA INFRASTRUCTURE TBK, PRESIDENT COMMISSIONER OF PT GLENDALE PARTNERS AND INTERNATIONAL CHANCELLOR
OF PRESIDENT UNIVERSITY.
DEALING WITH DISASTERS
INDONESIA experiences
earthquakes every day, and
often more than once. These
are usually not significant
and people get on with their
daily lives, taking the shak-
ing in their stride. While it
is a wonderful country in so
many ways, the downside
is the number of dangerous
events it faces. This is because of where the country is
located on the surface of the earth. It is at the junction
of a number of highly active tectonic plates, the move-
ments of which trigger earthquakes and periodic volca-
nic eruptions, with sometimes tsunamis to follow. Since
the turn of the century, the number of events that have
affected lives and property seems to have been more fre-
quent and this is causing raised concern.
Indonesia has some 87 active volcanoes with Mt.
Agung in Bali, Mt. Merapi in Java, Mt. Sinabung in Su-
matra and Mt. Soputan in Sulawesi currently erupt-
ing. And in the past, the archipelago experienced the
two largest violent eruptions in the world: Toba (North
Sumatra) 74,000 years ago and Tambora (Sumbawa) in
1815. While the Krakatoa, which led to the demise of
over 36,000 people in 1883, mostly from the tsunami
that occurred in the final stages, is ranked 5th on the
world scale, which highlights the destructive power of
major volcanic eruptions.
Offshore, seabed earthquakes of some significance
can create a tsunami. The worst recent one was that
which destroyed Banda Aceh, the west coast of the
province, and Phuket in Thailand and Galle in Sri Lanka
on 26 December 2004 with huge loss of life, in the order
of a quarter of a million. However, the two recent tsu-
nami disasters in Palu on 25 September 2018 and Sunda
Strait on 22 December 2018 were initiated in different
ways. At Palu, it was the presence of a significant stra-
tum of liquefiable soil on the slope leading down to the
bay being destabilized by the earthquake. For the Sunda
Strait event, it was related to an explosion of Mt. Anak
Krakatoa, causing a shoulder breaking off and sliding
quickly into the sea.
While the largest and most dramatic of earthquakes
and volcanic eruptions and any ensuing large tsunamis
are effectively impossible to defend against, these are
24 | FORBES INDONESIA MARCH 2019
SCOTT YOUNGER
fortunately relative-
Indonesia has ly rare in the plan-
some 87 active et’s history. Sensible
volcanoes with mitigation measures
can be considered to
Mt. Agung in Bali, reduce the impact on
Mt. Merapi in Java, people’s lives, struc-
Mt. Sinabung tures and crops for the
more frequent and less
in Sumatra and severe events.
Mt. Soputan in Many commu-
Sulawesi currently nities across the
country are coastally
erupting. located and there is
increasing awareness
that there needs to be much more attention paid to es-
tablishing tsunami warning systems and coastal man-
agement plan for locations likely to be affected by such
disasters. In addition, with the steady urbanization as
some 90 million more of the population forecast to re-
side in new towns and cities by mid-century, several of
which will be on the coast, this form of hazard should
be included in the planning and design of new devel-
opment undertakings.
Landslide is another significant potential threat. The
recent deadly landslide at Sukabumi provides yet an-
other warning. The prevalence of steep slopes is largely
due to Indonesia’s young volcanic geology. There should
be a landslide management plan under the responsibil-
ity of the district concerned with appropriate appoin-
tees from public services in charge to mitigate the risk.
Comprehensive identification of potentially dangerous
slopes and mitigation measures needs to be put in place
to avoid the deadly impact of a sudden landslide.
There are several well-tried engineering solutions,
including vegetative or green engineering, which can
stabilize vulnerable slopes. If not practicable, then
the communities involved should be strongly advised
of the dangers and be encouraged to move out of the
way. And when new developments involve excavation
into vulnerable slopes, then the design should nor-
mally include measures to avoid immediate and long-
term accidents. It is not rocket science to put in place
safety measures to warn of or avoid life-threatening
water or land movements on the surface of the Indo-
nesian archipelago. F

New
Way
to Buy
Cars
T
he digital era has
brought many chang-
es that makes our life
easier, almost every-
thing can be done
through the internet and smart-
phone including buying a car.
Previously car buying involves
a long process starting from
visiting the dealership, choos-
ing a car, having a discussion
with a sales staff, filling up the
forms and other administrative
processes. All the processes
can be completed with two to
three visits that will take too
much time. Luckily the digital
transformation can shorten this
long process and make buying
a car faster and easier through
an online platform. This is the
innovation that featured by
Bidbox, the first online plat-
form of multi-brand dealership
in Indonesia that has been in
operation since 2017. Bidbox
also is a subsidiary of PT Mitra
Pinasthika Mustika Tbk (MPM
Group) that established as a
form of the company’s business
innovation in the wake of chang-
ing consumer spending behavior
in the past couple years. Bidbox
offers many conveniences from
the buying process to after-
sales. With accessing Bidbox.
id whenever and wherever,
potential buyer can instantly
see and pick a car from 1,300
kinds of car from various brands.
Each car selection supported by
specification information and
its advantages, hence making
it easier for the consumer to
buy the right car based on their
taste and needs. In term of price
and financing, Bidbox can pro-
vide competitive pricing with an
SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION
匀 䔀 䄀 䴀 䰀 䔀匀 匀 䌀 䄀 刀 伀 圀 一 䔀刀 匀 䠀䤀 倀
䈀 䔀一 䔀 䘀䤀 吀匀 䘀伀 刀 夀伀 唀
additional direct discount that
other dealerships may cannot
provide, also financing service
can also be customized based
on the potential buyer. Further-
more, customers can directly ask
for offers and set up a booking
for a test drive online. While
for aftersales, Bidbox provides
trade-in feature after three years
and additional service beyond
the guarantee that given by the
dealership. All the services and
advantages by Bidbox caters not
only the business to customer
(B2C) but also for corporate or
business to business (B2B), for
instance corporate car purchase
or partnership for the Car Own-
ership Program (COP).
For further information, visit
www.bidbox.id or reach out through
email to sales@bidbox.id.
FORBES INDONESIA

LeaderBoard BY ULISARI ESLITA

Digital Transformation
Eka Tjipta Widjaja was one of the most successful
businessmen in the country. He founded the Sinar
Mas group, decades ago and turned it into Indo-
nesia’s largest conglomerates. Since the family
business will soon belong to the third genera-
tion, the Widjaja family has started looking for
new investments opportunities, apart from its
brick and mortar business. Undoubtedly, tech
is one of them. Franky Oesman Widjaja, 60,
is the one who initiated the investment by
founding Sinar Mas Digital Venture (SMDV)

SMDV is a corporate venture capital that fully funded by Sinar Mas group.
It provides venture investments, strategic network and mentorship. SMDV
portfolios, among others:

BUSINESS UNDER SINAR MAS GROUP

FRANKY OESMAN MUKTAR INDRA TEGUH GANDA

WIDJAJA, 60 WIDJAJA, 64 WIDJAJA, 66 WIJAYA, 74

AGRIBUSINESS >> GOLDEN AGRI-RESOURCES LTD · SInar Mas Agro Resources and Technology Tbk ENERGY AND MINING >> DIAN SWASTIKA SENTOSA
· Golden Energy Mines · Berau Coal Energy · Rolimex Kimia Nusamas (fertilizer and chemical trading) · Power plants in Tangerang, Serang, and Karwarang)
FINANCIAL >> SINARMAS MULTI ARTHA TBK · Bank Sinarmas · Asuransi Jiwa Sinarmas MSIG PULP AND PAPER >> ASIA PULP AND PAPER · Indah Kiat Pulp &
Paper Tbk · Pabrik Kertas Tjiwi Kimia Tbk · Pindo Deli Pulp and Paper Mills · Lontar Papyrus Pulp and Paper Industry · The Univenus · Ekamas Fortuna · Nippecraft Ltd (Singapore) ·
Solaris Paper Pte Ltd (Australia) · Sinar Mas Paper (China) · Gold East Trading (Hongkong) · Paper Excellence Canada Holdings Corp. PROPERTY >> SINARMAS LAND LTD · Plaza
Indonesia Realty Tbk · Puradelta Lestari Tbk · Bumi Serpong Damai Tbk · Duta Pertiwi Tbk BUND CENTER (OWNED BY ELIJAH FRANKLE DJAFAR WIDJAJA) · Bund Center Investment, Ltd ·
Shanghai Golden Bund Real Estate Co., Ltd TELCO · Smartfren Telecom Tbk · Innovate Mas Indonesia (Multimedia) · Eka Mas Republik (Multimedia)

26 | FORBES INDONESIA MARCH 2019

in 2014, then fol-
lowed by EV Growth
and Latitude Ven-
ture Partners (LVP)
Linda Suryasari Wijaya, Teguh
founded by his niece,
Linda Wijaya. “Tech
Ganda Wijaya’s daughter, started “Tech will
her own venture capital last year,
will connect these named Latitude Venture Partners
connect
new businesses with (LVP). LVP is a venture builder and these new
our brick-and-mortar venture capital that focuses on business
business. It is the early stage startup and growth- with our Eka Tjipta Widjaja
era of Industry 4.0 stage startups. The firm is reported
brick-and- 1921 - 2019
that includes major to manage up to $200 million of
innovations in the fund and will invest it in healthcare mortar
and fintech sectors on both local businesses.

E
digital technology.”
says Franky.
and global startups. It is the era ka Tjipta Widjaja, founder
of Industry of Sinar Mas group, one of
country’s largest conglom-
4.0 which erates, has passed away at the age
includes of 98. Listed as the third richest
major in- man in the country, Eka left at
least $8.6 billion of net worth to
novations his children and grandchildren.
in the digi- During his lifetime, Eka married
tal techno- twice and was blessed with 15 chil-
EV Growth is a collaboration between East Ventures, Yahoo! logy.” dren. From his first marriage with
Trini Dewi Lasuki, Eka had eight
Japan and SMDV. It aims at Southeast Asia pioneering companies,
Franky children, who mostly run the Sinar
especially Indonesia, to provide growth-stage capital injections,
Oesman Widjaja Mas Group. Meanwhile, Eka had
particularly in the series B. Started last year, the firm is aiming to
seven childrens from his second
invest $150 million fund. EV Growth portfolios, among others:
marriage with Millie Pirieh.
Eka’s success was started
when he and his family moved to
Indonesia from mainland China.
At the age of seven, Eka moved to
Makassar together with his family.
There, he started selling biscuits
BUSINESS OUTSIDE SINAR MAS and sweets by bicycle in order to
help his family. As time passed,
Eka started to do commodities
trading and went on to found
Sinar Mas. His early success in
commodities trading spurred him
to diversify into paper and pulp,
real estate, food and telco, with
holdings primarily in Indonesia,
Singapore and Malaysia.
ELIJAH FRANKLE SUKMAWATI OEI HONG
DJAFAR WIDJAJA, 61 WIDJAJA, 69 LEONG, 71 Eka’s business empire is now
run by his children and grandchil-
Owns Bund Center Investment Runs Top Global Ltd, a Under Hong Leong group, he is one of dren. Companies under the Sinar
Ltd, a property company property company with Singapore’s 50 richest with total net Mas brand include Singapore-
listed in Singapore Exchange. has portfolios in Singapore, worth of $1.5 billion. The bulk of wealth is
Some of his portfolios are Indonesia, and Japan. One of derived from property, financial services, listed Golden Agri Resources Ltd,
office tower, shopping center,
and Westin Shanghai hotel.
its portfolios is Rancamaya
Estate in Bogor.
and trading. In 2017, he invested $5
billion to build data center in Singapore.
one of the world’s biggest produc-
He also owns a prime property in ers of palm oil, and Bumi Serpong
downtown Vancouver.
Damai, Indonesia’s largest listed
property company.

MARCH 2019 FORBES INDONESIA | 27

GUEST COLUMN ALEXANDER RUSLI
ALEXANDER RUSLI IS THE CO-FOUNDER OF DIGIASIA BIOS

MOBILE PAYMENTS WILL

LEAD INDONESIA’S DIGITAL
In rural areas, it isn’t easy
to convert cold hard cash

TRANSFORMATION
WHEN LOOKING purely
at percentages, Indonesia’s
smartphone penetration
rate of over 60% may not
seem as impressive as the
rates in Malaysia and Sin-
gapore. However, it should
be noted that Indonesia’s
population of over 260 mil-
lion eclipses both countries’
combined populations.
Admittedly, the mobile take-up could be better, as much
of the economic activity is centered around Java. But a
growing second-hand phone market in the country means
that more people – especially those in lesser-developed ar-
eas – have better access to smartphone technologies. The
overall distribution of this technology is improving.
All this is supporting Indonesia’s claim to become
Southeast Asia’s largest digital economy. The digital lobe is
reflected in the growing social media reliance, in addition
to the rising adoption of big data and a thriving start-up
economy. But what will truly lead the digital revolution
across the nation are mobile payments.
A Burgeoning Mobile Internet Economy
More Indonesians are using their phones to go online.
This holds tremendous potential as it can push the de-
mand up for mobile banking services up, which is sig-
nificant for a country that contains 180 million unbanked
people. In many parts of the country, you can forget talk-
ing about digital banking; even basic forms of formal fi-
nancial services are lacking
So, depending on where you are, it may be easier to
own a smartphone than travelling to the closest bank. Mo-
bile technology can therefore cut across the fragmentation
within conventional payments systems and the country’s
archipelagic geography – two significant factors behind the
suppression of Indonesia’s holistic economic growth.
Growth Barriers
Mobile payments seem like an easy alternative to visiting
an ATM to get cash in rural spots, its use may be futile if
the merchants themselves do not see the need to for digi-
talized payments – either due to the unattractive costs for
implementation or because their customers do not fully
realize the benefits.
to digital cash. Each point
in the payment ecosystem
network needs to be devel-
oped in such a way that it can
facilitate the demand for mobile payments, otherwise
it’d just be the matter of rolling out a solution that no
one really wants or needs. Even in Indonesia’s thriving
e-commerce sector, most people prefer to pay for their
purchases via cash-on-delivery.
Unlocking Future Demand
Indonesia’s government has long been promoting a cash-
less society. While the benefits of convenience are ap-
parent to Indonesian individuals, the movement is also
aimed at keeping down the large costs of handling cash
and securing it by financial incumbents.
However, by going down the ladder, you will find
small merchants who help facilitate micro transactions.
Traditionally, the profits gained from such small transac-
tions are undercut by the costs of storing and distributing
cash in its physical form.
By going digital, these merchants can facilitate more
transactions (even as low as Rp 1,000) at lower costs. This
offers them another paying tool that is not limited by the
hard currency available, thus keeping them in business
whilst providing their customers more payment variety.
Realizing a Financially-Inclusive Indonesia
Indonesia – like many other countries today – are digi-
talizing their IDs. This is creating opportunities to mar-
ry digital IDs with mobile payments (a plan that may
soon take off in China).
While this idea may seem part of an unattainable
future, it is important that mobile payments players in-
novate the demand that was previously untapped or even
unheard of. This is because disruption – the ones that we
have seen transform traditional industries – do not hap-
pen overnight. They happen when market segments have
been underserved for too long, thereby creating condi-
tions that make the market ripe for major upheaval.
In Indonesia, this could mean empowering those
who have been traditionally left out of financial services,
either due to their geographical circumstances or that
the conventional services simply do not suit them.
With mobile payments, Indonesia can be more finan-
cially inclusive. It can allow the urbanite to save a trip to
the mall thanks to online shopping, while people in In-
donesia’s hardest-to-reach places can facilitate more mi-
cropayments and loans. With mobile technology, we can
cut across the financial divides. F

28 | FORBES INDONESIA MARCH 2019

 inancial Revolution

THE By Ardian Wibisono

P H OTO GRA P H BY A H M A D Z A MR O NI /H KV FO R FO R BES I ND O NES I A

UNICORN
BREEDER
Alpha JWC Ventures
is setting a
benchmark in the
VC industry
Chandra Tjan (left) and Jefrey Joe
 inancial Revolution

ndonesia has a vi- BEST PERFORMING

brant startups scene COMPANIES
with already four out Multiple (from initial to 21.3
of seven unicorn in last share price)
the region. However
20

MULTIPE (TIMES)
not many saw that
potential nine years 19
ago. In 2010, Chan-
dra Tjan, 39, was 18
among the few who see the potential 17
of the digital economy in Indonesia
and the trends in the U.S. and China 16
could repeat in the country. Local 15
startups like Tokopedia also started
14.2
to emerge at the time, but finding
14
financing was still not easy. Looking 13
at the opportunity, that year Chan-
12
dra decided to quit his job, moved in
to Jakarta, and started the pioneer- 11 10.6 10.6
ing tech investor East Ventures with
10
Batara Eto, and later with Wilson Cu- 9.1
aca and Taiga Matsuyama. However 9
he was the only partner that is based
8
in Indonesia. Before setting up East
Ventures, Chandra was in the bank- 7
ing sector for nearly ten years, work- 6
ing at Credit Suisse and Citi Group
in Singapore. East Ventures raised 5
their first fund of just S$3 million and 4
invested in more than 30 companies
including Tokopedia and Traveloka 3
– he is still the director of East Ven- 2
tures Fund 1 until today. Chandra
was the first board member in the 1
two startups in the early days for a
COMPANY
0
few years. Now, that first fund net as- Funding Societies OnlinePajak Alterra Carro Style Theory
set value (NAV) has multiplied by an
amazing 20 times the initial invest- SOURCE: ALPHA JWC VENTURES

ment (20X). Until now, Chandra still

holds shares in both unicorns. MILESTONES AND ACHIEVEMENTS
Unfortunately the team split.
Chandra decided to leave East Ven-
tures after raising his fourth fund
Received Term Sheet from Sequoia Onboarded Kah
Raised $200 K loan Launched Modalku However, there was a change in MAS Meng Wong

back in 2014, only to return a year lat-

for SMEs and won in Indonesia with regulation just before they proceeded as the CEO for
Tech in Asia’s Best Iwan Kurniawan as with the funding, hence it took longer Funding Societies

er in the business with a new venture

Start Up 2015 co-founder for them to close the funding round. Malaysia
Mar Jan May Dec

capital (VC) outfit: Alpha JWC Ven- 2015 2016 2017

tures. Alpha is an independent and Feb Apr Aug Feb
Launched Funding Societies in Raised $1.2 Mn Seed funding Raised $7 Mn Series A funding led by Launched
Indonesia-focused early stage VC. Singapore by Kelvin Teo and Reynold from Alpha JWC Ventures Sequoia, participated by Alpha JWC Funding
Wijaya while the two were studying and Singapore Press Holdings Ventures and Harvard Business School Societies in
Chandra co-founded Alpha with Je- MBA at Harvard Business School In this round, the amount In this round, they broke the record as the Malaysia
In addition, they hired the first 2 key they raised broke the record largest Series A funding for SME digital
frey Joe, 35, and Will Ongkowidjaja, members in Singapore. for Seed funding in SEA. financing platform in SEA.

32 | FORBES INDONESIA MARCH 2019

 40, in early 2015. While Chandra has
a strong banking background, Jefrey
who was the COO of Groupon Indo-
nesia and co-founder of Alterra is a
more hands-on operation guy. Will,
on the other hand, has a balanced ex-
perience in the investment banking
and consulting firms – he was a di-
rector at UBS and prior an associate
at Mckinsey & Company.
E-commerce was booming at the
time, but Alpha decided to deploy
their $50 million first fund raised in
2016 on what they think will be the
next big thing: fintech, software as a
service (SaaS), and big data. In total,
Alpha had invested in 23 compa-
nies from its first fund including in
peer-to-peer lending Funding Soci-
eties, fintech Kredivo, mobile credit
recharge platform Alterra (previ-
ously Sepulsa), taxation solutions
SaaS startup OnlinePajak, romance
and health products e-commerce
Asmaraku, second-hand product
market Jualo, and big data company
Dattabot. The strategy served the
company well. Data from Pitch-
book showed that the average top
performing fund in the U.S. achieved
the NAV of 2.6X after seven years.
However, Alpha’s first fund has
reached the NAV of 2.6X in less than
three years, the figure put Alpha’s
first fund performance in the top de-
cile or at least above the top quartile
category. From the 23 companies
Raised over $260 Mn
Raised $200 Mn loan for SME collected
loan for SME by crowd funding and
Reached $100 Mn
loan disbursed collected by reached over $250 Mn
crowd funding loan disbursed for SME
for SME
Mar Oct Jan
2018 2019
Apr
Raised $25 Mn Series B funding led by
Softbank Ventures Korea
The round was also participated by Alpha
JWC Ventures. One more time, they broke the
record as the largest Series B funding for SME
digital financing platform in SEA.
“To know whether
a VC is doing a
good job is not
by looking if they
have Go-Jek or
Tokopedia in their
portfolio compa-
nies, but whether
they have a consis-
tent performance.”
invested in the first funds only one
failed and burned a small investment
worth $40,000 or 0.1% of the fund
size. In less than three years, Alpha
also managed to build up the com-
panies’ valuation to over $1.3 billion,
while attracting international inves-
tors such as from China, Japan, U.S.
as well as from Indonesia.
“Many perceived investing in VC
is like gambling, you invest in ten, and
one or two might succeed and the
other failed. We want to change that
perception, we want to set a bench-
mark,” says Chandra.
VC itself is a relatively new indus-
try in Indonesia, which gained much
traction with the growing digital in-
dustry. Data published by Google and
ATKearney in 2017 showed that VC
investments in Indonesia in 2016 is
merely 0.15% to the GDP, lower than
Southeast Asia average of 0.28%. On
the other side, this shows huge room
for growth, especially if given incen-
tives and policy that foster the digital
startups industry. VC also plays an
important role in the startup ecosys-
tem. As an alternative investment,
VC may pay off high yield return in
the long run compared to other in-
vestment, but risk is also very high –
which suit more for advanced inves-
tor. Cambridge Associates, a global
investment firm based in Boston,
tracked the performance of venture
investment in 27,259 startups be-
tween 1990 and 2010. Its research re-
veals that around 60% of the startups
failed. Last year Alpha launched its
second fund with $100 million target
and added seven new startups in its
inventory and it still aims to maintain
a survival rate of over 90% for its in-
vestment.
“They’re very impressive, that’s
why we continue to participate (in
the second fund). I think they are on
par with China’s leading VCs,” says
Yeo Lee Meng, Executive Director
of Enspire Capital. Enspire is one of
the largest Singapore family office
funds that invest in VCs and direct
investment in China and Silicon Val-
ley, founded by Singapore technology
entrepreneur K.S. Chay. Enspire has
been with Alpha since the first fund.
“To know whether a VC is doing
a good job is not by looking if they
have Go-Jek or Tokopedia in their
portfolio companies, but whether
they have a consistent performance.
But we do still aim for the home run,”
Jefrey says.
To maintain such consistency,
Alpha is very strict to its investment
philosophy and strategy. In the past
one and a half year, Alpha received
over a thousand inbound deals –
these are proposals coming from
sources like LinkedIn and email
introductions. All inbounds get the
same treatment, they have to fill a
Microsoft Excel form that basically
tries to find out three things: how
much fund they want to raise, who
the existing investors are, and the
startup track record performance
and traction. Outbound deals com-
ing from reference, which now ac-
count about 10% of the deal source,
also have to give a pitch deck. First
MARCH 2019 FORBES INDONESIA | 33
 inancial Revolution
step is Alpha ditch the ones that
seek to raise ten of thousand of U.S.
dollars and look at the ones seek-
ing few hundred to a few million
U.S. dollars investment. Historically,
Alpha invested from $1 million to $8
million in startups raising their seed
stage. By looking at the filled forms,
Jefrey says it usually takes minutes
for the co-founders to decide which
startups have the potential. Next,
Alpha takes a look at the founder.
Founder, and co-founders, is one of
the key ingredients that investors,
from seed to late-stage, highly value.
“People often get it wrong. Af-
ter watching Social Network, most
would think strong founders are just
like Mark Zuckerberg or those who
dropped out from Harvard Business
School,” says Jefrey.
The founders of the startups
invested by Alpha have age ranging
from 22 years old to 48 years old.
Some founders are veteran entre-
preneurs like Edward Tirtanata
of Kopi Kenangan who decided to
partner with Alpha despite being
offered higher valuation from other
VC, some are experienced execu-
tives from well-known companies
or consultancy firms, but Alpha is
also willing to invest in founders like
Kelvin Teo and Reynold Wijaya of
Funding Societies who at the time
were still studying for their MBA
at Harvard Business School. Alpha
became the first investor of Funding
Societies in April 2016 – at the time
MILESTONES AND ACHIEVEMENTS
Collected $200 Mn
tax throughout the year
2015 2016
Sept
Officially launched
OnlinePajak: “Prepare-Pay-
File” your taxes online
34 | FORBES INDONESIA
ALPHA JWC VENTURES IMPACT IN INDONESIA
~3,200 Over Over Over
value-adding jobs 17,000 $250 Mn 118,000
created by our portfolio SMEs digitized in loan disbursed loans received
companies since 2016 rural areas to SMEs by SMEs
“They’re very impressive,
that’s why we continue
to participate (in the sec- $8 Bn 900,000
ond fund). I think they Indonesian tax registered corporate
are on par with China’s payment facilitated tax payers
leading VCs.”
– Yeo Lee Meng,
Executive Director of Enspire Capital.
Over Over Over
60,000 10,000 17,000
individuals received microloans SME outlets supported farmers supported
SOURCE: ALPHA JWC VENTURES
actually Sequoia was also interested Alpha also saw a good prospect
but they hesitated to put in invest- in Charles Guinot’s OnlinePajak. The
ment because the founders were still startup was trying to eliminate com-
studying. “But we were convinced. pany’s tax headache. However, at the
If they could well execute the busi- beginning, no one was willing to in-
ness while studying, they could do vest that Charles had to put his own
more after they graduated. Later in money. In July 2017, Alpha led an in-
August, after the founders graduated vestment round for OnlinePajak with
they raised $7 million with Sequoia, participation from Sequoia. Both
which we also participated,” says Funding Societies and OnlinePajak
Chandra adding that being local fo- are among Alpha’s top performer
cused and having deep understand- startups. Funding Societies is one of
ing of local issues help them to see the fastest growing fintechs in the re-
good business potential. gion, which as of January disbursed
SOURCE: ALPHA JWC VENTURES
Collected $8 Bn tax throughout the year
Onborded Gita Wirjawan, Awarded as one of 30 The tax was collected from 900 K corpo-
former trade minister and Promising Growth-Stage rate tax payers, with total transaction value
former chairman of Indonesia Startups in 2018 and of $120 Bn. Each month, the Company
Collected more than $3 Bn investment coordinating received Innovator Award managed around 5 Mn invoices and 475 K
tax throughout the year board, as commissioner 2018 from Forbes Indonesia payroll, and processed 9 K new companies.
Dec Dec Jan Oct Dec
2017 2018
Jul Apr Sept
Raised $3.2 Mn Series A funding Named one of Raised $25 Mn Series B funding led by
led by Alpha JWC Ventures World’s Technology Warburg Pincus
The round was participated Pioneers 2018 by The round was participated by Alpha JWC
by Sequoia and Primedge World Economic Ventures, Sequoia, Primedge Investment,
Investment. Forum Global Innovation Fund, and Endeavor Catalyst.
MARCH 2019
 SPECIAL EVENT SECTION

The Bank is honoured to have Mr. Luhut

Panjaitan to kick-off the event in Jakarta.

Prominent speakers to deliver update information to help clients’ wealth management decisions.

Standard Chartered Bank Indonesia

CEO Rino Donosepoetro (right) and
Coordinating Minister of Maritime Affairs
of Indonesia Luhut Pandjaitan (left) at One of Indonesia’s diva, Ms. Bunga Citra Lestari, Partnering with Prudential Life Assurance
the Jakarta opening ceremony. ready to entertain the clients. to assist clients’ protection needs.

This year, Standard Chartered Bank Indonesia is celebrating the 15th anniversary of its annual wealth seminar
event called Wealth-on-Wealth (WOW) which took place in four cities, namely Bandung on February 7th,
Jakarta on February 11th, Surabaya on February 19th, and Medan on February 25th, attended by a total of 2,500
invited Standard Chartered Priority clients.
In this event, the Bank opted the theme of “Indonesia 2019: Unlocking Opportunities amid Global
Uncertainties” which highlighted the Bank’s optimism towards Indonesia’s economic growth amid the global
economic growth that is expected to slow down and the upcoming presidential election in Indonesia.
The seminar in Jakarta was officiated with notable keynote speech by Mr. Luhut Panjaitan, Coordinating
Minister for Maritime Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia as well as other top speakers such as Mr. Chatib Basri,
Minister of Finance of the Republic of Indonesia for the period 2013-2014, Yunarto Wijaya, Executive Director, Charta
Politika Indonesia, and Michael Tjoajadi, President Director of PT Schroders Investment Management Indonesia.
Ms. Farah Ratnadewi Indriani, Deputy of Investment Climate Development, from Investment Coordinating
Board (BKPM) also attended the event in Jakarta.
The Wealth Management division of the Bank also launched three digital-based solutions during this event
to further assist its Priority clients to navigate their investment, to perform financial planning and to insure
their travelling activities digitally from anywhere and at any time through Online Mutual Funds, SmartGoals and
Online Allianz Travel Insurance.
Collaborating with its main insurance provider’s partner, Prudential Life Assurance, the Bank greeted its valuable
clients in the event with Chinese handwriting calligraphy wish for health, prosper and luck in the year of 2019.

Ms. Alena Wu’s astonishing performance in Bandung and Medan Managing Director, Head of Wealth Management Standard Chartered
Bank Indonesia Bambang Simarno and Country Head of Corporate
Affairs Standard Chartered Bank Indonesia Diana Mudadalam at the
launch of online services
 inancial Revolution
$260 million in loans. While On-
linePajak is now used by big compa-
nies like Astra International, Tokope-
dia and Traveloka, facilitating over $8
billion in tax payment.
In those startups, Alpha put more
than just capital on the table. Chan-
dra says Alpha now has team of 20
people and all based in Jakarta. The
team helps the startups to find the
talents needed by the company, grow
business, deal with problems, and
even media exposure. Jefrey says it is
important for Alpha to be founders’-
friendly, meaning when founders
have problems they open up to Al-
pha. Jefrey adds that it is not unusual
to discuss problem with founders late
at night, one even tag along with him
to Singapore just to have a discussion
during the flight.
“Alpha is also especially hands-
on in their portfolio companies – not
just in operations, but they are very
good in bringing other institutional
investors to the companies’ subse-
quent funding rounds,” says Gita
Wirjawan on what he likes in Alpha
compared to other VCs.
Gita is a veteran entrepreneur
and investment banker. The founder
of Ancora Group and former Trade
Minister is one of Alpha limited part-
ners (LP) – a common term for VC’s
investor – since the company’s first
fund. Besides Alpha, Gita also in-
vested in other VC and startups. Gita
sits in the board of advisor of Alpha
and for his experience in private and
MILESTONES AND ACHIEVEMENTS
Awarded as The First Online
Telco Aggregator in Indonesia
Dec
2015
Mar Oct
Founded, launched consumer Launched Bill
app, and raised Seed funding Payment
from Alpha JWC Ventures and Aggregator
Beenos Plaza.
36 | FORBES INDONESIA MARCH 2019
public sector he was asked to help
OnlinePajak as well as some of the
VC’s other portfolio companies. Gita
also helps Alpha to connect with blue
chip investors like Sequoia and Soft-
bank, and in turn Alpha will connect
these investors to their startups when
they scale-up.
Another aspect that many of the
LPs and startups like from Alpha is
its independency. Many VCs in Indo-
nesia are either corporate or family-
related VC. Jefrey says being inde-
pendent enables Alpha to take swift
and rational decision without having
to seek approval from anchor inves-
tor. The company also doesn’t have
to deal with conflict of interest that
might risk the business.
“OnlinePajak, for example, deals
with sensitive tax data. We don’t have
any interest to take a peek. Our sole
interest is money, but we maintain
our integrity. We don’t represent any-
thing other than Alpha,” Jefrey says.
For their second fund, Alpha is
extending their focus to media and
advertising. Chandra says even uni-
corns like Go-Jek and Tokopedia will
still need media advertisement. So far
the VC has invested in media startup
Nusantara Technology and out-of-
home advertising company Target
Media Nusantara, part of China’s Fo-
cus Media Group. Alpha also invested
in Vietnam based SaaS startup Base.
vn. Like Funding Societies, Chandra
says Base.vn has the potential to grow
their business in the region.
Awarded as The
Best Online Telco
Channel for Indosat
2017 and The
Best Performance
aggregator by XL
Axiata 2017
Dec
2016 2017
Dec Jan
Awarded as The Best Raised Series A funding from Alpha JWC
Online Telco Channel for ventures and Captii Ventures and launched a
Indosat 2016 and The Best ground breaking project called Archipelago
Performance aggregator The project aims to digitalize traditional
by XL Axiata 2016 outlets for phone credit.
Last but not least, all of the in-
vestment should lead to a successfull
exit. Gita says many VC firms have
a limited investment period and
they would need to exit within 4-5
years. In contrast, many startups are
already closing in to their maturity
stage and would require more long-
term investors. “We have seen only
a handful of IPOs, some industry
M&A and consolidation. But there
are needs for a more sustainable
path, where local startups can get
access to long-term funding while
remaining as focused and as inde-
pendent as they may prefer,” he says.
And so far, Alpha has done one
exit from its first fund by selling
co-working space Spacemob to We-
work. Wework is planning a major
expansion in Southeast Asia pump-
ing in $500 million. The acquisition
happened just nine months after
Alpha invested in the co-working
startup and generated 150% in IRR
and 2.5X in multiple of capital con-
tributed (MOC), which is a multiple
of distributions received relative
to the capital invested. Chandra
says Alpha is currently looking at a
couple of exit.
“We believe it was the right
decision to exit and has maximized
the return in that situation. We don’t
have any specific target, but we need
to be smart in timing the exit of the
companies. As a fund, we need to
create superior return for our
investors,” Chandra says. F
SOURCE: ALPHA JWC VENTURES
Awarded as The Best
Performance Aggregator by
Launched Alterra Academy XL Axiata 2018 and The Best
The program reached more than
Partner Performance Blibli
1 K applicants on the first batch
Award 2018
Oct Dec
2018
Mar Nov
Raised Series B funding from Alpha Shortlisted as one of
JWC Ventures and Integrated the eight startups to
Asset Management (Asia) join Bangkok Bank
InnoHub Season 2
 inancial Revolution
Financing
Future
Could fintech help elevate higher education in
Indonesia?
By Ulisari Eslita
Over the
past five
decades, pri-
mary school
enrollment
rate in In-
donesia has
been steady
at 100%,
which means that all school-aged
children in the country go to school.
And thanks to the government’s
universal primary education target
set in 1988, which aims to extend
the country’s minimum education
attainment even higher, Indonesia’s
secondary school enrollment rate
has gone up to 83%.
Unfortunately, higher education
enrollment is growing very slow. In
1970, the enrollment rate was 8%
and today it is only 25%. According
to the Ministry of Higher Educa-
tion, as of 2018, only 7.5 millions
young people at the age of 19-24
years old went to universities (out
of 25 millions of population in that
age). Compared with the neighbor-
ing countries, Indonesia clearly lags
behind. The Philippines’ and Thai-
land’s higher education enrollment
38 | FORBES INDONESIA MARCH 2019
rate is 36% and 49%, respectively.
Indonesia has a growth success
story with its GDP increasing five
times in size since the year 2000—
from $165 billion in 2000 to $903
billion last year. In terms of de-
mography, Indonesia has one of the
world’s youngest populations, with
60% of population being young
people in their productive ages.
However, the demography bonus
could turn south if the quality of
the workforce is not improved. To
maintain the economic growth, the
country needs to continue increas-
ing the pool of skilled workforce
with skills relevant to address the
demand from industry.
One of the ways to have more
skilled people is to send more
young people to college. Clearly, the
state budget cannot cover all the
cost, since the government’s fore-
most attention is still to maintain
the primary and secondary level
of education. In many developed
countries, such as the U.S., Cana-
da, and Australia, the government
endorses higher education. In the
U.S., the federal government and
the states share the responsibil-
ity for financing higher education
(roughly $70 billion each).
“Actually there are many rea-
sons why young people don’t go to
college, one being financial issue.
They have no ability to borrow,”
says Susli Lie, Co-Founder of Dana
Cita, a fintech lender that provides
student loans.
That’s why President Joko
“Jokowi” Widodo in a gathering
with bankers in April 2018, asked
the lenders to allocate loans for
students taking bachelor’s to post-
graduates degrees. Responding to
Jokowi’s aspiration, state-owned
banks like Bank Rakyat Indonesia,
Bank Tabungan Negara and Bank
Mandiri began launching student
loan products last year. The credit
limit provided varies from Rp75
million to Rp200 million, with an
average of 6% annual interest rate
and up to 10 years of tenure. In re-
EDUCATION
BUDGET
2019
20%
STATE BUDGET 2019
Rp 2,461.11 T
SOURCE: THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVE BUDGET COMMITTEE
turn, students are required to main-
tain their academic performance
with minimum 3.25 of GPA.
But even before the banks
started giving student loans, some
fintech – namely DanaDidik, Dana
Cita, KoinWorks, and Pinduit –
have seen business opportunity.
 Provincial Education Budget
Rp 308.38 T
62.62%
EDUCATION BUDGET
Rp 492.46 T
Each is targeting different segment.
DanaDidik, for example, is focus-
ing on healthcare and technology
students. Started in 2015, DanaDi-
dik has 350 students in its portfolio.
In average, each student could get
Rp5 million to Rp25 million loan,
with up to 4.5 years of tenure. “Our
credit scoring system is emphasiz-
ing on employability: how prompt
the students are in getting a job af-
ter they graduate,” says Dipo Satria
Ramli, CEO of DanaDidik.
On the other hand, Dana Cita,
which is started two years ago,
offers loans up to Rp100 million
per student, with interest rate of
1% per month. Unlike DanaDidik
which requires borrowers to be in
their senior year, Dana Cita wel-
comes freshman to apply. “As long
as they are already registered at
Education Development
Fund (DPPN)
Rp 20.99 T
4.26%
Ministry of Education
Rp 35.99 T
7.31%
Ministry of Religious Affair
Rp 51.9 T
10.53%
Ministry of Research, Technology
and Higher Education
Rp 40.1 T
8.14%
Other Ministries
Rp 25.63 T
5.20%
State Treasurer’s Office
Rp 9.36 T
1.90%
a certain university, students can
apply,” says Susli.
Student loans can offer solu-
tion to the financing issue, which
might as well improve productivity,
drive the economy and lift millions
of people out of poverty. However,
it could also put a more liability on
young adults especially when they
cannot payback their loans, thus
creating a new source of risk to the
economy, just like what happened
in the U.S. where student debts
reached $1.5 trillion last year. That
means a typical student borrower
will have $22,000 in debt by gradu-
ation. As of last year, almost five
million Americans, or 22% of bor-
rowers have defaulted on their fed-
eral student loans. Why? One of the
triggers is the terms of payment.
Student loans provided by the
U.S. federal government weigh 90%
of the total loan market (the rest are
controlled by financial institutions).
This federal loan has a very loose
term of payment. For example,
students are required to start pay-
ing installments six to nine months
after they graduate. Under the stan-
dard repayment scheme, the loan is
also amortized over 10 years. Fur-
thermore, students can also opt for
more manageable repayment plans
after they graduate, such as extend-
ing their payments or adjusting the
installments with income-driven
repayment schemes.
Fintech players are of course
aware of the risk, and they do have
risk management system to prevent
the student loans turning sour. Da-
naDidik, for example, only provides
loans to senior students enrolling in
vocational education (like health-
care, technology, or accounting) in
reputable universities, which they
see the students will easily be ab-
sorbed by industry once they gradu-
ate. DanaDidik also transfers the
loans directly to the university.
“That’s why we can maintain
our non-performing loan ratio at
only 1.4%,” claims Dipo.
Dana Cita implements a differ-
ent strategy to minimize risk. Dana
Cita applies double borrower appli-
cation, meaning the student’s par-
ents also sign the loan agreement.
But unlike in the U.S., both DanaDi-
dik and Dana Cita don’t give grace
period for installment. Borrowers
have to start paying installment in
the following month. Yet, the repay-
ment term is quite friendly since
the biggest chunk of the loan will be
paid after the students graduate.
“On our early operation, we
used to apply the same system like
in the U.S. Unfortunately, it didn’t
work out. They just forgot to pay
the loan,” Dipo says. F
MARCH 2019 FORBES INDONESIA | 39
 inancial Revolution
n the digital era,
working should be
made as convenient
as possible, with
flexible schedule
and less distraction
on trivial matters
like administrative
works and making reports. This is
what Jojonomic is trying to solve
in order to improve people’s pro-
ductivity. Launched in 2015, the
cloud-based mobile financial ap-
plication emphasizes on taking care
administrative-related matters us-
.
.
.
ing technology. Presently, Jojonom-
ic heavily focuses on B2B practice,
since company’s productivity can
be tracked through numbers, like
revenue growth.
Founder and CEO of Jojonomic,
Indrasto Budisantoso claims that
Jojonomic’s users productivity im-
proves from two aspects. Firstly, by
using Jojonomic’s application they
are able to cut the time on dealing
with administrative work by 70% or
more - what would’ve taken three
days can be shortened to less than
one day. Secondly, as they are able
to simplify administrative task, em-
ployees are able to increase their fo-
cus and passion in working.
“Those miscellaneous are not
people’s main job, and they de-
crease people’s passion and ef-
ficiency in working to the fullest.
Jojonomic begins to solve the issue
starting from our expense manage-
ment applications,” says Indrasto,
better known as Asto.
Jojonomic is widely known for
their reimbursement application
JojoExpense, which was launched
as one of the company’s earliest

Simple
Work
Jojonomic is taking over employees’
administrative work so they can
focus on what matters.
By Marella Putri
products, and has since been used
by many banks in Indonesia. With
this, one could just take a picture
of receipts using Jojonomic app in-
stead of making a long reimburse-
ment report. The app will then
create a report and direct it to the
company’s finance team. Upon their
approval, the virtual account at the
bank will reimburse accordingly to
the employee’s own account. This
feature therefore allows an easy re-
cord for expense and work trip, cre-
ating a seamless reporting process.
Furthermore, it is also equipped
with fraud detection system backed
by artificial intelligence and ma-
chine learning system. Combining
the increase in productivity and less
potential of fraud, research by Jo-
jonomic claims to enable saving of
around $500 per employee annual-
ly, and the amount can rise accord-
ingly if the employee’s number and
working hourly-rate is higher.
MOHAMAD RAKA FOR FORBES INDONESIA
“The initial capital expendi-
ture investment by companies are
also relatively minimal, since it is
subscription-based. Therefore we
can make sure that the company’s
return of investment for using Jojo-
nomic is positive,” says Asto.
Another widely used application
is JojoTimes, which uses biometric
face recognition that enables em-
ployees to clock-in by taking a selfie,
as well as to track colleagues’ loca-
tions and their work progress. With
it, employees can work from any-
where at anytime, and still achieve
their target. There are also applica-
tions for procurement, payroll, fi-
nance, and business trip, which can
either be accessed from each app
individually or from one big module
of JojonomicPro.
Asto says in their early days,
most of the users are digital compa-
nies. As trend goes and encourages
everyone to go digital, now state-
owned enterprises and more tradi-
tional companies have used their
“In the future,
we want to
accommodate
into their lifestyle
and revolutionize
flexibility and
productivity.”
services as well. Among others are
Pertamina Patra Niaga; CIMB Niaga
and Bank Bukopin; e-commerce
Tokopedia and Blibli; as well as tele-
communication, logistic, palm plan-
tation, and consulting companies.
Asto claims that their active
users or subscribers have reached
tens of thousands in total. This does
not include thousands of users in
foreign countries where Jojonomic
has expanded, especially since its
2016 funding, such as Malaysia, Sin-
gapore, Thailand, and the furthest
being Colombia. They come mostly
from Indonesian MNC clients’ re-
ferral. Although their main focus
is Indonesia, Asto admits that the
startup has been quite opportu-
nistic. Since Jojonomic specializes
in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), it
uses cloud system and cover pay-
ment from any currencies.
Jojonomic makes their revenue
from subscription fees, which are
based on the number of users and
the services that the company ticks.
The range goes between $2 - $10 per
user. They also integrate with banks
and negotiate for a cheaper transfer
fee, whilst still able to take margins.
Prior to developing their B2B
services, Jojonomic actually began
from free-access personal finance
management application Jojo Fi-
nance, which aims to raise finan-
cial literacy. Upon inputting bud-
get and expense, Jojonomic helps
to track one’s limit. Unfortunately,
since it has to be done manually,
people often forget and fail to con-
tinue the routine.
“This is the problem that we
have identified and is on our pipe-
line for the long run. Now we have
seen how daily lives are getting
more integrated with the financial
technology environment, as well as
how cashless payment is growing.
When these two aspects merge, our
MARCH 2019 FORBES INDONESIA | 41
 inancial Revolution
application will not require people
to do manual input anymore, since
everything is already integrated.
Soon enough, we are definitely
waiting for the right moment to
come,” visions Asto.
So far, Asto is quite proud that
Jojonomic as an Indonesian B2B
application is being used by clients
from other countries. Although
some competitors follow suit, Asto
is confident that Jojonomic has the
upper hand due to all services being
integrated. New players in the busi-
ness also indicates that the space is
indeed lucrative. The huge poten-
tial of the business also attracts in-
vestors representing many regions
to invest in Jojonomic.
“We are among the few that
could claim of being backed by
investors from the US, Europe, Ja-
pan, Singapore and local as well.
Through them, we learn how they
grow the cloud and SaaS business
in their respective region and how
to penetrate the market, then it
would be easier for us to go glob-
al,” says Asto in confidence.
Last January, Europe-based
Finch Capital led an investment
with East Ventures and Golden
Gate Ventures in Jojonomic with
undisclosed amount, which is to
be used to upgrade business solu-
tion. Following this, Asto reveals
that this mid-year Jojonomic will
launch three new applications
to boost efficiency and eliminate
administrative work. Along with
their goal in contributing to Indus-
try 4.0, they want to influence the
mindset of companies.
“In the future, we want to
accommodate into their lifestyle
and revolutionize flexibility and
productivity, a solution for adminis-
tration hassle. So if a company
claims to have gone digital, they
must be using Jojonomic.” F
42 | FORBES INDONESIA MARCH 2019
Redefining
Banking
DBS Indonesia is redefining banking
experiences in digital era.
By Ester Christine Natalia
owadays,
digitalization
has disrupt-
ed lots of
conventional
businesses.
Companies
that have
been established for over a decade
are now competing head-to-head
against stratups-most of wich were
founded in the last five years. In
Indonesia, the major change can be
seen in financial industry with the
boom of startups delivering innova-
tions from a combination between
financial services and technol-
ogy. The new phenomenon called
financial technology, or popularly
known as fintech, boasts convenient
procedures and seamless process
in obtaining financial services in
far simpler way compared with the
conventional finance company. As of
February, there are 99 fintech com-
panies registered at the Financial
Services Authority (OJK). These fin-
techs are specifically targeting un-
banked people in Indonesia, which
are 95 million people according to
World Bank Global Findex 2017.
To stay updated with the chang-
ing trend, DBS Indonesia launched
a consumer-banking product called
Digibank. The name itself is self-ex-
plained, the product promotes a digi-
tal access to banking services through
smartphone application. The subsid-
iary of Singapore-based lender claims
the product, which is only available
in Indonesia and India, as a purely
paperless banking product.
“We want the smartphone to
substitute brick-and-mortar banks.
So the smartphone becomes the
bank itself, not merely an extension
for banking services in a smart-
phone,” says DBS Indonesia Presi-
dent Director Paulus Irwan Sutisna,
54, adding that the bank currently
has 44 branches throughout Indone-
sia and has no plan to open more.
With digibank, those who want
to open a bank account simply need
to fill in data form on the applica-
tion and set an appointment with
an agent who will bring a device to
verify customer’s biometric data. The
biometric verification can also be
done at Biometric Station available in
27 coffee shops in Jakarta, Bandung,
Surabaya and Yogyakarta. The bank
is cooperating with Home Ministry’s
Population and Civil Registry Agency
(Dukcapil) to obtain biometric data
from customers’ e-KTP, as well as a
 AGOES RUDIANTO FOR FORBES INDONESIA

MARCH 2019 FORBES INDONESIA

|
43
 inancial Revolution
local startup to outsource the verifi-
cation agents in Greater Jakarta Area,
Bandung, Surabaya, Semarang, Yog-
yakarta and Medan.
It takes no minimum balance to
open an account. Once it is set up, the
customer is able to transfer fund up
to Rp 200 million to other bank ac-
count through the application with-
out administration fee. The bank also
enables customer to withdraw money
and check balance through any ATM
machine that partners with ALTO,
ATM Bersama or PRIMA networks
free of charge for up to 100 transac-
tions each month. Other features in-
clude spending tracker, 24-hour vir-
tual assistant, e-wallet top-up and bill
payments, as well as personal loan
application.
Since the launching in Au-
gust 2017, DBS Indonesia has got
600,000 new customers through
its Digibank, with a growth rate of
around 1,000 new accounts each
day. Perior to the launch, the lender
was focused on corporate and SMEs
clients with only a total of 100,000
customers. So far, 42% of digibank’s
customers are under 28 years old
and 73% coming from greater Jakar-
ta. The digibank customers spread
matches its target market; the urban
digital savvy millennials. The bank
aims to have at least 3.5 million cus-
tomers within five years operation
of digibank since they plan to make
it as one of their main banking prod-
ucts in the future.
Paulus says they have yet to set
a revenue target from digibank be-
cause they still focus on the amount
of customers. He also adds that the
bank has no plan to charge digibank
customers with administration fee
since the product offers efficiency
in attracting more customers with-
out opening more branches. A 450
sqm branch office typically cost Rp
5.5 billion. The growing number of
44 | FORBES INDONESIA MARCH 2019
COSTUMER SEGMENTATION “We are trying to be embedded
Digibank by DBS Indonesia customers, as in the e-commerce world because
of February 2019: 600,000 customers people are busy shopping in that
platform nowadays. Our dream is
Geographically that one day the transaction can
be done without having to switch
3% Semarang and
Yogyakarta 1% between e-commerce and banking
Medan
application, so the process will be
Surabaya
totally seamless,” Paulus explains.
8% In terms of security, he says that
DBS Group hires the so-called white
hackers to try to hack their system
and find loopholes to be fixed. DBS
has a global reputation in security. It
is listed in the Global Top 50 World’s
73% Safest Banks from Global Finance
14% Greater
Jakarta Area Magazine for 10 consecutive years.
Bandung
He also claims biometric verification
used for digibank to be safer than sig-
Demographically
nature, which can be easily fabricated.
34% 42% According to the bank's financial
Above 35 Millennials
years old (<28 years report, as of third quarter of 2018,
old)
DBS Indonesia booked Rp 2.9 tril-
lion net interest income, up by 31.8%
year-on-year from Rp 2.2 trillion. It
also recorded Rp 57,608 trillion in
outstanding loans, with 3.11% gross
non-performing loans.
23% To be totally in tune with digita-
Senior Millennials lization, Paulus says DBS Indonesia
(28-35 years old)
SOURCE: DBS starts to utilize big data from a local
telecommunication company for
customers, balances and personal credit scoring with a newly launched
loans in Digibank will later auto- system named Algo Lending. The
matically contribute to the bank system is applied for personal loans
revenue, he explains. approval. It works by using data
However, it is a challenge for the from the telecommunication com-
bank to make sure the customers pany to analyze customer’s spending
keep using Digibank instead of run- and behavior for credit scoring. The
ning away after registering—since score will help DBS Indonesia decide
there is no minimum balance. For whether to approve the loan applica-
that, Paulus says the bank will coop- tion or not. This way the bank could
erate with e-commerce companies manage bad loans better.
in providing seamless payment sys- “Data from a telecommunication
tem, one of which will be announced company is very rich. For instance,
sometime around this year. Cur- we can discover customer’s spend-
rently, Digibank is partnering with ing and current residence, and verify
19 merchants including Mandiri whether it is true from the data. No
e-Money, Telkomsel, GOPAY, M-tix, need paper documents to apply for
PLN and MOGPlay. personal loans,” Paulus says. F
 WO U L D YO U R I S K FA L L I N G
F O R T H E C H A N C E T O F LY ?

MAKE THE CALL

THE MACALLAN PRESENTS A J. WALTER THOMPSON/RSA FILMS PRODUCTION A JURIAAN BOOIJ FILM
IN ASSOCIATION
WITH GLEN GRIBBON, PAUL CONDRON AND ALISON TUCK EXECUTIVEDIRECTOR
CREATIVE
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CREATIVE
PAUL RIZZELLO CREATIVE
TEAM STEFAN FOSTER AND KATIA SCHUTZ

PARTICIPATION OF DAVID CLYDE, JAMES O’REARDON, ADRIAN LANGFORD AND NEIL GODBER PRODUCERS DOUG WADE, GREG NICHOLLS AND JAMES AUBIN PHOTOGRAPHER JASON PIETRA
WITH THE

RETOUCHER ALAN MURRAY PRODUCTION ABSOLUTE POST PRODUCTION CREATIVE OFFICER DAVID SMITH SUPERVISOR BEN ROBARDS OF CGI JAMES COORE COLOUR MATT TURNER PRODUCER LISA JOSEPH
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FORBES INDONESIA
LeaderBoard
EUROPE
2019
SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS
CAMILLA HESSELLUND LASTEIN, 25
FOUNDER, LIX
DENMARK
After learning that only 2% of textbooks
are digitized, Lastein founded Lix, a
subscription-based digital textbook app:
“You have the convenience of having the
book everywhere you go.” Lix has raised
$7.5 million from investors, including Danish
billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen. And it has
convinced major publishers such as McGraw
and Oxford to digitize their libraries.
46 | FORBES INDONESIA MARCH 2019
30 UNDER 30 EUROPE 2019
TECHNOLOGY
DAVIDE DATTOLI, 28
FOUNDER, TALENT GARDEN
ITALY
While WeWork focuses on America and major
European cities, Dattoli has raised $61 million to bring
co-working to places like Bucharest, Romania and
Kaunas, Lithuania. “Innovation is not growing only in
San Francisco or London,” he says. Dattoli has 3,500
members and 23 locations across eight countries.
RETAIL & ECOMMERCE
RAISSA DE HAAS, 28
COFOUNDER, DOUBLE DUTCH DRINKS
NETHERLANDS
Raissa and her identical twin, Joyce, got their start in college
making tonic waters infused with strawberry, mint and pome-
granate. Their Double Dutch Drinks (seltzers, ginger beer and
more) are now available in 22 countries in 2,000 supermarkets
and 4,500 restaurants and luxury hotels. Joyce is chief oper-
ating officer. As for Raissa? “I’m 11 minutes older, so I am CEO.”
MANUFACTURING & INDUSTRY
MICHAEL SORKIN, 27
COFOUNDER, IGO3D
GERMANY
When Sorkin was 12, his family fled Russia
and settled in Berlin. In 2010, he dropped
out of college (“I was frustrated—I wanted to
build things”) to found iGo3D, a 3-D-printer
distributor that now does over $28 million in
revenue. The company sells printers directly
to retail chains including Staples.
ART & CULTURE
CONNA WALKER, 26
FOUNDER, HOUSE OF CB
U.K.
In high school, Walker founded wo-
menswear brand House of CB, which
sells figure-hugging dresses priced
between $150 and $200, “an invest-
ment piece for everyday people,”
she says. The company pulled in $15
million in profit last year; Kylie Jen-
ner and Jennifer Lopez are fans.

FINANCE
JONATHAN LEVIN, 28
COFOUNDER, CHAINALYSIS
U.K.
“I am not a spy,” Levin insists.
Perhaps not—but plenty of law-
enforcement agencies, such as
the FBI, DEA and Europol, rely
on Chainalysis’ software to track
down the illicit side of cryptocur-
rency. The startup has $18 million
from investors like Benchmark.
SCIENCE & HEALTH CARE
YANN FLEUREAU, 29
COFOUNDER, CARDIOLOGS
FRANCE
Fleureau’s first job, at age 16, was working on a
shallot farm. He would eventually follow a decid-
edly higher-tech path: With $10 million in funding,
he has created software to help doctors who aren’t
cardiologists better analyze EKG exams.
SPORTS & GAMES
CARLOS RODRIGUEZ, 28
FOUNDER, G2 ESPORTS
SPAIN
ENTERTAINMENT MEDIA & MARKETING
In 2014, Rodriguez ended his
JESS GLYNNE, 29 ANDY BRUCKSCHLOEGL, 29
decade-long playing career in
MUSICIAN COFOUNDER, RYTE
e-sports (“I consider myself a
U.K. GERMANY
competitor and entertainer,”
“My parents always had Ryte, with $3.5 million in fund-
he says) to start his own team,
records lying about and ing, creates software that helps
G2 Esports. The 40-player club,
introduced me to dif- websites perform better in
which primarily competes in Call
ferent genres. I became search results. Bruckschloegl’s
of Duty and League of Legends
obsessed through other gig: hosting an entrepre-
tournaments, generates revenue
them,” Glynne says. neurship festival at Munich’s
mostly from sponsorships with
Their tutelage paid off: Oktoberfest, to which more than
companies such as Logitech. In
She has scored seven 5,000 show up to hear from the
all, the team is conservatively
No. 1 hits on Billboard’s likes of Richard Branson.
worth $105 million.
British charts, and her
2018 album, Always In
Between, debuted at the
top of that list as well.
TOP ROW, FROM LEFT: Raissa De Haas Dress by Tory Burch; earrings by Noor Fares; gold bangle and ring by Carolina
Bucci; shoes by Malone Souliers.
Davide Dattoli Shirt by Richard James; jacket by Paul Smith; jeans by Theory; shoes by Crockett & Jones.
Michael Sorkin Shirt by Canali; cords by Tom Ford.
Jonathan Levin Shirt by Filippa K; trousers by Timothy Everest; shoes by Crockett & Jones.
Carlos Rodriguez Shirt by P Johnson; T-shirt by Filippa K; trousers by Hackett; shoes by Crockett & Jones.
Andy Bruckschloegl Shirt by Huntsman; T-shirt by Sunspel; chinos by Canali; belt by Brooks Brothers; shoes by Bassweejun.
BOTTOM ROW, FROM LEFT: Camila Hessellund Lastein Robe by Georgina Harding; skirt by Rebecca
Vallance; necklace by De Beers; gold-and-diamond cuff by Ileana Makri; shoes by Manolo Blahnik.
Conna Walker Suit by Alexander McQueen; jewelry by House of CB; shoes by Gianvito Rossi. Stylist: Melissa Holdbrook-
Akposoe; assistant stylist: Chloe Vazz; makeup: Nikki Wolf; hair: Carl Campbell.
Yann Fleureau Shirt by Missoni; jeans by Autograph; boots by Jimmy Choo.
Jess Glynn Suit by Esaú Yori; vest by James Perse; jewelry by Adina’s; shoes by Malone Souliers. Makeup: Anna Payne; hair:
Lyndell Mansfield; stylist: Avigail Collins; nail tech: Kelly Shenton.
FORBES INDONESIA

TECHNOLOGY WARUNG PINTAR

I
n Indonesia, it is easy to stum-
ble upon some mom-and-pop
stores commonly known as
warung on the side of streets or
corner of residential area and busi-
ness district. These warungs often sell
daily necessities like snacks, candy,
cigarette, soap, and mobile phone
credit. Established in November 2017,
startup PT Warung Pintar Sekali (Wa-
rung Pintar) - literally translates into
‘smart kiosk’ - is trying to upgrade
these micro entrepreneurs. Painted
bright yellow and accentuated with
black, which makes it being pretty
eye-catching from afar, this warung
2.0 is equipped with technology and
features that enables them to adapt
with digitization and cater to changing
consumer needs.
“The number of warung across
Indonesia reached nearly 3 millions,
and around 70% of the people are still
onto general trade. So it’s just logical
to grab that opportunity,” says Agung
Bezharie Hadinegoro, 29, Co-founder
and CEO of Warung Pintar, referring
to a report by Nielsen.
Prior to founding Warung Pintar
with other co-founders: COO Mu-
hammad Harya Putra and CTO Sofian
Hadiwijaya, Agung himself was an as-
sociate at venture capital. He thinks
that SMEs are always very interesting
for having large numbers, yet being

Smart FROM TOP:

Agung Bezharie Hadinegoro, CEO

Kiosk
Sofyan Hadiwijaya, CTO
Muhammad Harya Putra, COO
WINSTON GOMEZ FOR FORBES INDONESIA

underserved and lacking technological products, which mo-

Warung Pintar empowers micro-
entrepreneurs for digital inclusion.
BY MARELLA PUTRI
tivated the trio to bring solution to these micro-businesses.
In December 2018, Warung Pintar expanded from great-
er Jakarta area to Banyuwangi, East Java. Agung claims to
have 1,200 warungs in total per end of January. He aims to
reach at least 5,000 by this end of year and focuses on up-
grading more warungs within Java first. Despite already re-
ceiving more than 10,000 partner applications every month

48 | FORBES INDONESIA MARCH 2019

from all over Indonesia, these appli-
cants must first pass Warung Pintar’s
standard assessment on their loca-
tion - such as their land legality and
clear payment record; as well as on the
market share itself - the traffic, GDP
per capita, and density in the neigh-
borhood.
When a warung becomes a partner,
they are obligated to use the module
and platform as prepared by Warung
Pintar. Warung Pintar provides early
capital for entrepreneur to open or
upgrade their warung and lend equip-
ments such as Wifi router, mobile
charging station, LCD
TV, and CCTV. The
startup also educates Mobile
Phone
the owner to operate Charging
Post
all the features and ser-
vices they could offer to
their customer. Aside LCD TV
from common FMCG
products, the warung
can now also offer digi- Mini
Refrigerator
tal and financial prod-
ucts, such as mobile
phone credits, train and
plane tickets, to mo- POS Tablet
torbike credit that can
be purchased through
cashless payment.
Warung Pintar is
planning to extend further these wa-
rungs’ feature with the recent series
B funding worth $27.5 million, which
they sealed in mid January 2019.
Jumping in to the list with other pre-
vious seed investors (including SMDV,
Vertex, Pavilion Capital, Line Ven-
tures, Digital Garage, Agaeti, Triputra,
Jerry Ng, and EV Growth) is mobile
payment system OVO, which will help
the startup to provide further finan-
cial inclusion to warungs, such as in
easy access to funding, inventory, and
payment. Ostensibly, Warung Pintar is
sophisticating services between stores
and customers, but the fundamental
principle lies on how Warung Pintar
as a platform aggregates these wa-
rungs so that big companies are able
to tap into the retail community and
therefore work with them as well.
“What we do is basically embed-
ding technology in order to generate
data, and when it is generated, every-
thing is much smarter. Both warung
and companies can be benefited be-
cause everything is aggregated,” ex-
plains Agung.
From the generated data, compa-
nies can see which of their products are
selling well in which area and under-
stand the market situation. And when
they want to increase their market
share in certain area, they can advertise
through Warung Pintar - as tradition-
ally warungs have always been an in-
formal advertising channel. From this
ad placement on their TV and internet
service, warungs will get commission
as their additional revenue. Warungs
are also benefited in terms of procure-
ment. It’s a compulsory for the wa-
rungs to buy their inventory from Wa-
rung Pintar, however the prices will be
cheaper since Warung Pintar is able to
negotiate bulk price with producer.
“On our financing part, we are able
to disperse loans quickly with lower
risks to our warung, because we have
already known our warungs’ transac-
tions, traffic, and cash flow registered
on our database,” explains Agung.
Warung Pintar has several rev-
enue streams. It takes margin from the
goods inventory sold to the warungs,
and platform fee from transactions
and advertisement. In terms of rev-
enue, Agung hints that they are grow-
ing much higher than 20% month-
on-month, and states that it is not yet
their objective to be profitable this
year as they have always prioritized to
scale very quickly first. The warungs
however, which daily sales varies from
Rp 300,000 to Rp 5,000,000, are al-
ready profitable, and on average they
have had 40% increase of income - per
December 2018. Majority of the prod-
ucts sold are FMCG, but
Warung Pintar plans to ex-
WI-FI pand sales of non-FMCG
products this year.
Leveraging from tech-
CCTV nology makes everything
more efficient for warung,
which basically distin-
Cashless guishes their model to that
Payment of convenience store. And
System
therefore, Warung Pintar
doesn’t feel as much as di-
Electrical rectly competing with con-
Plug
venience store.
“We see from the per-
spective of business model,
distribution, products sold,
and the behavior of those
who come to warung, which is more
community-based,” Agung says.
He also says that the inbound
growth of applicants represents In-
donesian’s highly positive perception
on entrepreneurship, as reported by
Global Entrepreneurship Monitor
2018, as well as the growth of digital
literacy. What Warung Pintar does is
therefore simply, yet crucially, accom-
modating this enthusiasm by provid-
ing them the capital needed and in-
creasing their capacity in the process.
“We want to be the golden stan-
dard for micro-businesses. So when
one thinks about quitting job and
build warung, they will build warung
pintar instead of the normal conven-
tional one.” F
MARCH 2019 FORBES INDONESIA | 49
What does a blockchain
look like? Using Google’s
BigQuery, a Danish designer
created this visualization
of the blockchain for the
XRP cryptocurrency.
Every speck is a
wallet or user. Swirls
represent payments,
and craters are
XRP whales like
exchanges
Binance,
Poloniex and
crypto debit
card startup
Wirex.

Googling I
t’s a balmy 80 degrees on a mid-December day
in Singapore, and something is puzzling Allen
Day, a 41-year-old data scientist. Using the tools

Blockchain
In the late 1990s, Google transformed the Web
by creating a fast, accurate and easy-to-use
he has developed at Google, he can see a myste-
rious concerted usage of artificial intelligence on the
blockchain for Ethereum. Ether is the world’s third-
largest cryptocurrency (after bitcoin and XRP), and
it still sports a market cap of some $11 billion despite
losing 83% of its value in 2018. Peering into its block-
chain—the distributed database of transactions un-
derpinning the cryptocurrency—Day detects a “whole
COURTESY THOMAS SILKJAER

search engine. Now it could do the same for

the blockchain, the technology underlying
cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum.
BY MICHAEL DEL CASTILLO
bunch” of “autonomous agents” moving funds around
“in an automated fashion.” While he doesn’t yet know
who has created the AI, he suspects they could be the
agents of cryptocurrency exchanges trading among
themselves in order to artificially inflate ether’s price.

50 | FORBES INDONESIA MARCH 2019

FORBES INDONESIA
TECHNOLOGY GOOGLE’S CLOUD
“It’s not really just single agents do-
ing things on their own,” Day says from
Google’s Asia-Pacific headquarters.
“They’re forming with other agents to
have some larger group effect.”
Day’s official title is senior devel-
oper advocate for Google Cloud, but
he describes his role as “customer
zero” for the company’s cloud com-
puting efforts. As such it’s his job to
anticipate demand before a product
even exists, and he thinks making
the blockchain more accessible is the
next big thing. Just as Google enabled
(and ultimately profited) from mak-
ing the internet more usable 20 years
ago, its next billions may come from
shining a bright light on blockchains.
If Day is successful, the world will
know whether blockchain’s real us-
age is living up to its hype.
Last year Day and a small team
of open-source developers quietly
began loading data for the entire Bit-
coin and Ethereum blockchains into
Google’s big-data analytics platform,
BigQuery. Then, with the help of
outside developer Evgeny Medvedev,
he created a suite of sophisticated
software to search the data.
In spite of a total lack of public-
ity, word of the project spread quickly
among crypto-minded coders. In the
past year, more than 500 projects
were created using the new tools,
trying to do everything from predict-
ing the price of bitcoin to analyzing
wealth disparity among ether holders.
When it comes to cloud com-
puting, Google is far behind Ama-
zon and Microsoft. Last year Google
pocketed an estimated $3 billion in
revenue from cloud services. Ama-
zon and Microsoft, meanwhile, gen-
erated about $27 billion and $10 bil-
lion, respectively.
Day is hoping that his project,
known as Blockchain ETL (extract,
transform, load), will help even the
playing field. But even here Google is
trying to catch up. Amazon entered
blockchain in a big way in 2018 with
a suite of tools for building and man-
aging distributed ledgers. Microsoft
got into the space in 2015, when it
released tools for Ethereum’s block-
chain. It now hosts a range of services
as part of its Azure Blockchain Work-
bench. But while Amazon and Micro-
soft are focusing on making it easier
to build blockchain apps, Day is fo-
cusing on exposing how blockchains
are actually being used, and by whom.
“In the future, moving more eco-
nomic activity on chain won’t just re-
quire a consensus level of trust,” says
Day, referring to the core validating
mechanism of blockchain technology.
“It will require having some trust in
knowing about who it is you’re actu-
ally interacting with.” In other words,
if blockchain is to go mainstream,
some of its beloved anonymity fea-
tures will have to be abandoned.
A native of Placer County, Califor-
nia, Day got his first computer at the
age of 5 and a few years later started
writing simple programs. A fascina-
tion with volcanoes and dinosaurs
turned his interest to life sciences,
and he ultimately graduated from
the University of Oregon with a dual
degree in biology and Mandarin in
2000. From there he headed to UCLA
to pursue a doctorate in human ge-
netics and helped build a computer
program to browse the genome.
It was at UCLA where Day began
relying on distributed computing, a
concept that is core to blockchains,
which store their data on a large
network of individual computers.
In the early 2000s Day needed to
analyze the massive amounts of data
that make up the human genome. To
solve this problem he hooked many
small computers together, vastly in-
creasing their power.
“Distributed-systems technol-
ogy has been in my tool kit for a
while,” Day says. “I could see there
were interesting characteristics of
blockchains that could run a global
supercomputer.”
Hired in 2016 to work in the
health and bioinformatics areas of
Google, Day segued to blockchains,
the hottest distributed-computing
effort on the planet. But the tal-
ents he had honed—sequencing ge-
nomes for infectious diseases in real
time and using AI to increase rice
yields—were not easily applied to
decoding blockchain.
Before Day and Medvedev re-
leased their tools, just searching a
blockchain required specialized soft-
ware called “block explorers,” which
let users hunt only for specific trans-
actions, each labeled with a unique
tangle of 26-plus alphanumeric char-
acters. Google’s Blockchain ETL, by
contrast, lets users make more gen-
eralized searches of entire ecosys-
tems of transactions.
To demonstrate how custom-
ers could use Blockchain ETL to
make improvements to the crypto
economy, Day has used his tools to
examine the so-called hard fork, or
an irrevocable split in a blockchain
database, that created a new crypto-
currency—bitcoin cash—from bitcoin
in the summer of 2017.
This particular split was the re-
sult of a Hatfield and McCoy “war”
within the bitcoin community be-
tween a group who wanted to leave
bitcoin as it was and another who
wanted to develop a currency that,
like cash, was cheaper and faster
to use for small payments. Using
Google’s BigQuery, Day discovered
that bitcoin cash, rather than in-
creasing so-called micro-transac-
tions, as the defecting developers
claimed, was actually being hoarded
among big holders of bitcoin cash.
“I’m very interested to quantify
what’s happening so that we can see
where the legitimate use cases are
for blockchain,” Day says. “Then we
can move to the next use case and
develop out what these technologies
are really appropriate for.”
Day’s work is inspiring others.
MARCH 2019 FORBES INDONESIA | 51
FORBES INDONESIA

TECHNOLOGY GOOGLE’S CLOUD

Tomasz Kolinko is a Warsaw-based

programmer and the creator of a
service that analyzes smart con-
tracts, a feature of certain block-
chains that is designed to transpar-
ently enforce contractual obligations
like collateralized loans but with
less reliance on third parties, like
lawyers. Kolinko was frustrated
with his blockchain queries.
In December, Kolinko met Day
at a hackathon in Singapore. Within
a month of the meeting, Kolinko
was using Google’s tools to search
for a smart contract feature called
a “selfdestruct,” designed to lim-
it a contract’s life span. Using his
own software in conjunction with
Day’s, Kolinko took 23 seconds to
search 1.2 million smart contracts—
something that would have taken
hours before. The result: Almost
700 of them had left open a selfde-
struct feature that would let any-
one instantly kill the smart contract,
whether that person was authorized
or not. “In the past you couldn’t just
easily check all the contracts that
were using it,” Kolinko says. “This
tool is both the most scary and most
inspiring I’ve ever built.”
Day is now expanding beyond
bitcoin and ethereum. Litecoin,
Before joining
zcash, dash, bitcoin cash, ethereum Google’s cloud
classic and dogecoin are being add- team in Singapore
ed to BigQuery. Independent devel- and becoming its
de facto blockchain
opers are loading their own crypto evangelist, genetics
data sets on Google. Last August, Ph.D. Allen Day
attended the
a Dutch developer named Wietse Academy of Magical
Wind uploaded the entire 400 giga- Arts in Los Angeles.
bytes of transaction data from Rip-
ple’s XRP blockchain, another pop-
ular cryptocurrency, into BigQuery. neck deep in XRP transactions. operating blockchains to increase
Wind’s data, which he updates ev- “Google has been a bit of a security, a big deal in a world where
ery 15 minutes, prompted a Danish sleeping giant in blockchain,” says untold millions of crypto have been
designer named Thomas Silkjaer to BlockApps CEO Kieren James-Lu- stolen by hackers. The company is
create a heat map of crypto flows. bin, who is partnering with Google also pushing its developers to build
MUNSHI AHMED FOR FORBES

The resulting colorful orb reveals at
a glance more than a million crypto
wallets, including big exchanges
like Binance and London’s crypto
debit card startup Wirex, which are
to sell enterprise blockchain apps.
In addition to Day’s work, Google
has filed numerous patents related
to the blockchain, including one
in 2018 to use a “lattice” of inter-
apps on the Ethereum blockchain,
and Google’s venture arm, GV, has
made a number of significant in-
vestments in crypto startups.
The giant, it seems, is waking up. F

52 | FORBES INDONESIA MARCH 2019

F I N T E C H

WITH
FRIENDS
LIKE
THESE…
Ryan Williams is one of the most
successful 30 Under 30 honorees ever,
a tech founder reinventing real estate
investing via Cadre—and building a
$160 million personal fortune in the
process. The only hitch: His most
critical backer, Jared Kushner, is one of
America’s biggest lightning rods—and
won’t divest his big chunk. The inside
story of how a startup functions amid
the Trump soap opera.
BY N AT H A N VA R D I
JAMEL TOPPIN FOR FORBES

54 | FORBES INDONESIA MARCH 2019

 Opportunity zone: Ryan Williams at the
New York office of his startup, Cadre. He has
surrounded himself with a team that combines
Wall Street and real estate veterans with
young tech wizards from the likes of Square.

MARCH 2019 FORBES INDONESIA | 55

F I N T E C H
UST BEFORE CHRISTMAS,
the Associated Press pub-
lished an article on the ways
Ivanka Trump and her husband,
Jared Kushner, might personal-
ly profit from the generous new
“opportunity zone” tax breaks
they had championed as advisors
to their father/father-in-law,
who happens to be the president
of the United States. The very
first path cited in the widely read
story: Kushner’s investment in the real
estate startup Cadre, a stake worth up to $50 million, ac-
cording to his most recent federal financial disclosures.
The collective groan emanating from Cadre’s head-
quarters in Manhattan could probably be heard all the
way to the White House. “I would be lying if I said the
political angle wasn’t frustrating or concerning,” Ryan
Williams, the CEO and founder of Cadre, says in as
matter-of-fact a manner as possible. “There are people
who won’t work with us [because of the Kushner con-
nection], and we get that. But we have over 80 investors
in the company. Jared is a passive investor who has no
operational control.”
Driving home the point, he gestures toward the doz-
ens of employees toiling industriously at their desks in
Cadre’s wide-open office space, maintaining a website
where qualified investors can view detailed information
on apartment and office properties, with video walk-
throughs, maps, lists of tenants and long memos packed
with data points. “It’s a normal day, and everybody is ex-
ecuting,” Williams insists. “It doesn’t distract us.”
Yet the issue surrounds him. Literally. The office he
points across, in the historic Puck Building in Man-
hattan’s trendy Nolita district, is owned by the Kush-
ner Cos., run by Jared until he decamped to the White
House. Williams developed and incubated the Cadre
concept with Jared and his brother, Josh. In today’s
startup world, where the term “cofounder” can signi-
fy little more than buying coffee for everybody during
stealth mode, either of the Kushners could have tak-
en that title with full justification; Williams has even
referred to them as such. Many of the big real estate
players who adopted the Cadre funding platform came
through Jared’s introductions; Josh’s venture fund,
Thrive Capital, made the key early investment. Josh sits
on Cadre’s board—and works two floors above. In other
words, it’s extremely hard to detach the Cadre brand
from the Kushner one.
56 | FORBES INDONESIA MARCH 2019
A lot has been written about the self-enrichment
going on with the Trump administration. Ryan Williams,
however, suffers from the opposite problem. He’s the
American Dream personified. (Mark Cuban, a Cadre in-
vestor who emails with Williams weekly, describes him
thus: “Smart. Focused. Learns and reiterates continu-
ously.”) He has a product that promotes transparency,
liquidity and lower costs: With the click of a mouse, in-
vestors can buy stakes in properties without the ridicu-
lous double fees charged by traditional property invest-
ment firms and also exit via a new secondary market. Yet
Williams pushes his startup forward, dragging along his
relationship with the White House like a two-ton anchor.
Last April, Williams flew alone to Tokyo to meet Ma-
sayoshi Son, the Softbank billionaire who has flooded
the startup market with the conglomerate’s tankers full
of Saudi government petrodollars. Williams has raised
$133 million to date for Cadre, at a valuation, most re-
cently, of $800 million. Over dinner at Son’s palatial To-
kyo home, with its indoor golf range, Son demonstrated
his knowledge of Cadre’s model and threw out a $500
million investment—a figure, a source familiar with the
talks says, that would double Cadre’s current valuation.
“After we had dinner, he was like, ‘I want to show
DONALD TRUMP SON-IN-
LAW JARED KUSHNER
COFOUNDED CADRE WHILE
RUNNING HIS FAMILY’S REAL
ESTATE BUSINESS. HE KEPT
A STAKE WHEN HE WENT
TO THE WHITE HOUSE,
CREATING HEADACHES FOR
RYAN WILLIAMS.
you around, give you the tour,’ ” Williams recalls. “Basi-
cally, as we were walking around, he said, ‘Do we have a
deal at these pricing levels?’ ”
“I am honored and really appreciate the opportuni-
ty,” Williams responded, “and would love to figure out a
way to partner with you.”
Williams left Tokyo with concerns about the amount
of control Softbank’s Vision Fund wanted—but optimis-
tic they could work something out. Cadre was about to
hit the big time, and Williams, already worth some $160
JAMEL TOPPIN
million (Forbes pegs his stake in Cadre at about 20%),
was poised to become extremely wealthy. But within a
 month, Bloomberg News ran an article emphasizing the
potential link between Jared Kushner, Cadre, Softbank
and Saudi money. Discussions fell apart soon after.
“It has been a challenge because of the association,”
says Michael Fascitelli, the head of Cadre’s investment
committee and the former CEO of real estate giant Vor-
nado Realty—introduced to Williams, yes, by the Kush-
ners. “Jared is not involved, but there is a perception he
is, and that is mostly a negative because people want to
stay clear of that.”
Williams has accumulated a dizzying array of back-
ers with ties to the current Trump era. Besides Cuban,
the president’s biggest business-world heckler, there’s
Peter Thiel, his biggest Silicon Valley water carrier, and
George Soros, the poster boy for right-wing conspiracy
theorists. But as a policymaker and presidential whis-
perer, it’s Jared Kushner who creates Williams’ head-
aches, refusing to divest, despite sitting in on all sorts of
decisions that could affect Cadre. “Ryan has dealt with
it by being transparent and honest,” Fascitelli says, “and
spending more time than he should explaining it to in-
THE FORBES
FINTECH50
While crypto prices and ICOs collapsed, overall
investment in fintech surged in 2018, hitting $55
billion worldwide, double the year before, Accenture
reports. Big fintechs are getting bigger—19 of the 2019
Fintech 50 are valued at $1 billion or more. But there
are also 20 startups making their first appearance
on our fourth edition of this list. All our picks are
private companies and have operations, customers
or impact in the U.S., even if they’re not based here.
See more details on each at FORBES.COM/FINTECH50.
EDITED BY JANET NOVACK AND MATT SCHIFRIN
REPORTED BY JEFF KAUFLIN, TOM ANDERSON, MICHAEL DEL CASTILLO, ANTOINE
GARA, SARAH HANSEN, JONATHAN PONCIANO AND KRISTIN STOLLER

vestors, sponsors and institutions.”

This article marks the first time Williams has delved
deep into the specifics of this unprecedented balancing
act. (Jared Kushner declined to comment. Josh Kush-
ner emailed an anodyne statement about Williams and
Cadre.) Over the past two years, Trump has busted a lot
of norms, many derived from emoluments issues and a
family which continues to own wide-ranging business
interests while leading the federal government. As Ryan
Williams strives for scale, with an otherwise feel-good
entrepreneurial story, the 30-year-old also races to en-
sure that he’s not one of the many brought down be-
cause of their proximity to Trump.
LIKE MANY YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS on the hunt
for capital, Williams knows how to market himself. His
personal elevator pitch: a kid from Baton Rouge who
went from cutting up worms and selling them as bait to
a teen whose wildly successful embroidered wrist- and
headband business won him top awards from the Gold-
man Sachs Foundation, the NAACP and the National
Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship. Then came
Harvard, Goldman and Blackstone, and then the Forbes
ILLUSTRATIONS BY DAVID WILSON FOR FORBES
Acorns
IRVINE, CA
A micro-investing app that rounds
up debit and credit card purchases
to the nearest dollar, directing extra
pennies into diversified portfolios of
ETFs. Now offers checking account
and debit card, too, for $3 a month.
FUNDING: $257 million; latest valua-
tion of $860 million
BONA FIDES: In past year, has almost
doubled user base to 4.5 million
CEO: Noah Kerner, 41
Addepar
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA
Its cloud-based software allows fi-
nancial advisors, family offices and
private banks to track and analyze
a client’s holdings and more easily
bring new clients on board.
FUNDING: $240 million; latest valua-
tion of $500 million-plus
Affirm
SAN FRANCISCO
Makes instant 3-to-
24-month point-
of-sale loans to
finance purchases from 1,500
online merchants at APRs between
10% and 30%, with some sellers
subsidizing 0% APR rates.
FUNDING: $450 million; latest valua-
tion of $1.8 billion1
BONA FIDES: Issued $2 billion-plus in
loans in 2018, double 2017 volume
COFOUNDER & CEO: Max Levchin, 43, a
cofounder of PayPal
Axoni
NEW YORK CITY
Uses blockchain-based smart con-
tracts to overhaul the back offices
of derivatives markets. A distribut-
ed ledger will allow counterparties
to see payments, calculations and
other trade information in real time.

BONA FIDES: $1.3 trillion in assets on

30 Under 30, on the back of Cadre. platform; used by Morgan Stanley, FUNDING: $59 million
AB Bernstein, Oppenheimer & Co.
Yet there are aspects of his background that Williams and Jefferies
BONA FIDES: Working with trade
repository DTCC and a committee of
isn’t as keen to discuss. His father, a paralegal, and his COFOUNDER & EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN: large banks
Joe Lonsdale, 36, also a cofounder of
mother, a social worker, separated when he was about Palantir Technologies
COFOUNDERS: CEO Greg Schvey, 32;
CTO Jeff Schvey, 33, brothers who
6. Williams and his family lived in rental homes in the CEO: Eric Poirier, 36 also cofounded TradeBlock
northern part of the city, which has long struggled with 1
SOURCE: PITCHBOOK.

segregation, crime and persistent poverty.

“He grew up in a community where the likelihood
BLOCKCHAIN INVESTING PERSONAL WALL STREET PAYMENTS LENDING REAL
was that one in three African-American men would be in & BITCOIN FINANCE & ENTERPRISE ESTATE

MARCH 2019 FORBES INDONESIA | 57

F I N T E C H
THE FORBES FINTECH50
Ayasdi
MENLO PARK, CA
Big banks use its machine learning
technology to analyze their market
and operational risks and detect
potential money laundering.
FUNDING: $106 million
BONA FIDES: Citigroup, Credit Suisse,
Department of Homeland Security
and Lockheed Martin are customers
COFOUNDERS: CEO Gurjeet Singh, 37;
president Gunnar Carlsson, 66; VP,
research, Harlan Sexton, 64—all Stan-
ford mathematics Ph.D.s
Behavox
NEW YORK CITY
Fast becoming Wall Street’s one-stop
AI shop, with algorithms that handle
surveillance of email, voice and text
data and accompanying data lakes.
FUNDING: $15 million; latest valuation
of about $300 million
BONA FIDES: Nearly 30 customers, in-
cluding Balyasny Asset Management,
Arrowgrass, Marshall Wace, TP ICAP,
Citigroup and Anglo American
COFOUNDER & CEO: Erkin Adylov, 35,
a Kyrgyzstan-born former Goldman
analyst and hedge fund manager
Betterment
NEW YORK CITY
The robo-advice pioneer manages
ETF portfolios tailored to an inves-
tor’s goals and risk tolerance, held
in taxable accounts and/or IRAs for
0.25% of assets a year. Offers cus-
tomers with at least $100,000 newer
hybrid service with access to human
financial planners, too, for 0.40% of
assets a year.
FUNDING: $275 million; latest valua-
tion of $800 million
BONA FIDES: Largest independent
robo, managing $15 billion in assets
for 400,000 customers
COFOUNDER & CEO: Jon Stein, 39, for-
mer banking consultant who started
Betterment when he was just 28
Bitfury
AMSTERDAM
The full-service blockchain firm
has expanded from bitcoin-mining
hardware to launch its own block-
chain, plus software to investigate
illicit activity using bitcoin.
58 | FORBES INDONESIA MARCH 2019
FUNDING: Over $150 million; latest
valuation of $1 billion-plus
BONA FIDES: $500 million in reve-
nue in 2018
COFOUNDER & CEO: Valery Vavilov, 39,
a Latvian-trained computer scientist
Blend
SAN FRANCISCO
The cloud-based software provider
allows mortgage applicants to se-
curely share financial data with lend-
ers to cut approval time. Moving into
the homeowners’ insurance business.
FUNDING: $160 million; latest valua-
tion of $500 million
BONA FIDES: Its software is used to
process more than $1 billion in mort-
gage applications a day
COFOUNDERS: CEO Nima Ghamsari,
33; CTO Eugene Marinelli, 31
Bolt
SAN FRANCISCO
Its mobile-ready checkout software
for ecommerce sites incorporates
both sales analysis and fraud pre-
vention, cutting both checkout time
and fraud.
FUNDING: $20 million
BONA FIDES: Launched in early 2018,
it already has hundreds of customers
and is processing some $500 million
in sales a year. Users include fraud
targets such as jewelry merchants.
COFOUNDER AND CEO: Ryan Breslow,
24, who dropped out of Stanford in
2014 to start Bolt
Brex
SAN FRANCISCO
Issues a corpo-
rate credit card
designed for
startups, with
credit limits based largely on how
much cash a company has, rath-
er than an entrepreneur’s personal
credit history. Points heavily reward
spending on software subscriptions,
travel expenses and rideshares.
FUNDING: $215 million; latest valua-
tion of $1.1 billion
BONA FIDES: Broke above unicorn $1
billion valuation in just 22 months
COFOUNDERS: CEO Henrique Dubu-
gras, 23 (above); COO Pedro Fran-
ceschi, 22, Brazilian-born computer
engineers who sold their last startup
for tens of millions
the criminal justice system,” says Darren Walker, pres-
ident of the Ford Foundation, which invested in Cadre,
and a native of Louisiana. “Both of us had relatives who
were in the prison system.”
“It was rough” is all Williams will say.
His big break came right before high school, when
his mother moved the family to the more results-orient-
ed New York City suburb of Ossining. Williams threw
himself into school and his entrepreneurial ventures. He
ignored a guidance counselor who told him not to both-
er applying to Harvard, and he hooked up with a New
York program that mentors poor kids with potential. At
Harvard, Williams studied economics.
His true major? Networking. “He is fearless in his
outreach and pursuit of relationships,” says Raymond
McGuire, a vice-chairman of Citigroup and one of the
most prominent African-Americans on Wall Street. Wil-
liams recruited McGuire to speak at an early meeting of
Veritas Financial Group, a group he organized to con-
nect undergrads with Harvard Business School profs. “I
always thought,” Williams says, “ ‘What was the worst
thing that can happen? People say no.’ ” They usually
said yes, though: It now ranks among Harvard’s biggest
student groups.
“You can let being an outsider overwhelm you,”
Williams says, “or you can figure it out and reset
people’s expectations.”
It was also at Harvard that Williams met Josh Kush-
ner, two years his senior. The pair became close after
Williams’ junior year, when he snagged a summer in-
ternship and worked on an NBA team sale at Goldman
Sachs, where Josh had already taken his first job. During
senior year, Josh’s dad, Charlie Kushner, was trying to
buy the Philadelphia 76ers and brought on Williams to
help on the bid. The Kushners lost the team, but were
won over by Williams.
“I would check in regularly with Charlie and Josh
after that,” Williams says.
Around this time, Williams took his first crack at real
estate. He visited Atlanta in 2009, at the height of the fi-
nancial crisis, and saw single-family homes marketed at
$240,000 selling at auction for as little as $60,000. So he
partnered with a classmate who had grown up in Atlanta
and bought distressed properties with cash raised from
other Harvard students and their parents, including Char-
lie Kushner, who became one of the biggest investors.
Upon graduation in 2010, Williams joined Gold-
man as an analyst in its technology investment bank-
ing group. Two years in, he jumped to Blackstone, the
world’s biggest real estate investment firm, to work
on hotel and apartment deals. Through it all, Williams
cultivated contacts and kept his ear to the ground. One
thing he heard: Blackstone investors grumbling about
 how they couldn’t choose Cadre Coinbase
BILLIONAIRE which individual real es-
NEW YORK CITY SAN FRANCISCO

VENTURE tate deals to buy into and

couldn’t sell their holdings
CAPITALIST
if they needed cash. And
VINOD KHOSLA he couldn’t help but no-
PUBLICLY OPPOSED tice the high fees endemic
to real estate investing.
DONALD TRUMP’S Meanwhile, in 2012,
PRESIDENTIAL RUN. Congress had passed the
Jobs Act, which, among
HE WAS AN EARLY other things, allowed on-
INVESTOR IN CADRE line portals to crowdfund
AND ADVISES ITS real estate. “I had a feeling
there was a massive oppor-
Online platform enables investors
to buy and sell stakes in commercial
and multifamily real estate at lower
fees. See story, p. 52.
FUNDING: $133 million; latest valuation
of $800 million
BONA FIDES: Has raised $500 million
in equity to fund purchase of more
than $2 billion in real estate
FOUNDER & CEO: Ryan Williams, 30
Carta
SAN FRANCISCO
Expanding beyond its roots as a bit-
coin wallet and retail exchange, it
now offers cryptocurrency custo-
dy and professional and institutional
trading platforms.
FUNDING: $525 million; latest valua-
tion of $8 billion
BONA FIDES: Has opened 25 million
wallets
COFOUNDER & CEO: Brian Armstrong,
36; his holdings in Coinbase make
him a billionaire
Credit Karma
SAN FRANCISCO

BOARD. tunity in the convergence Helps startups (including dozens of

of real estate and tech,”
Williams says. “I made a list
of eight or nine people who
I was interested in speaking
with, and the top of the list
was the Kushners.”
Jared was already toy-
ing with the idea of raising
money online for Kushner
Cos. deals. But Williams
had a broader ambition:
to create a digital syndi-
cation system that could
be tapped by numerous
real estate operators. “He
unicorns) manage funding rounds
Offers a grow-
and track their ownership, acting as
transfer agent on equity. Plans to ing suite of free
services, includ-
expand to private equity and real
ing credit scores,
estate.
tax-prep software
FUNDING: $148 million; latest valua- and help fixing credit report errors.
tion of $800 million Earns referral fees when users bite
BONA FIDES: Tracking $500 billion- on personalized offers for credit
plus in company equity, including for cards and loans.
Robinhood, Slack and Coinbase
COFOUNDER & CEO: Henry Ward, 42, FUNDING: $869 million; latest valua-
who launched it as eShares in 2012 tion of $4 billion
BONA FIDES: 85 million “members”
Chime COFOUNDERS: CEO Kenneth Lin, 43
(above); chief revenue officer Nich-
SAN FRANCISCO ole Mustard, 45; CTO Ryan Gracia-
no, 37
Mobile-first bank offers checking
accounts, debit cards and service
Cross River
that rounds up purchases, deposit- FORT LEE, NJ

believed there could be a better way to do things,” Josh ing extra pennies in savings. Mem-
bers can tap into direct-deposited
Kushner said in an email. “A better way to enable access. pay two days early with no fee. Born from a small New Jersey com-
A better way to provide transparency and liquidity.” munity bank, it handles payments
FUNDING: $105 million; latest valua- and deposits for Stripe and Transfer-
A partnership emerged. Williams would run Cadre as tion of about $500 million Wise and creates notes behind loans
CEO and get it licensed as a broker-dealer. The Kushner BONA FIDES: More than 2.6 million issued through Affirm and Quicken’s
accounts, with 350,000 being added RocketLoans.
Cos., run by Jared, would list the initial deals on the Cadre a month
platform. Josh Kushner’s Thrive Capital would help Wil- COFOUNDERS: CEO Chris Britt, 45; FUNDING: $128 million; latest valua-
CTO Ryan King, 42 tion of $1 billion
liams recruit tech talent and make VC introductions. And BONA FIDES: Has originated $20 bil-
both brothers would put up money and introduce Wil-
liams to rich investors and other real estate operators.
Circle lion in loans through partners
FOUNDER & CEO: Gilles Gade, 52
BOSTON
Leaving Blackstone “was a hard decision, because I
had never made that kind of money in my life—staying at Digital Reasoning
Offers cryptocurrency trading, in-
Blackstone was the most straightforward way to becom- vesting and payment services. Last
FRANKLIN, TN

ing a millionaire,” Williams says. “I could just come to October partnered with Coinbase
to launch USDC stablecoin, a crypto
work every day and work hard, but instead I took a leap asset using the Ethereum blockchain Its machine-learning software
on something.” In the Kushners, though, he had a net. and backed by U.S. dollars. extracts meaning from ordinary
communications and is used by
Cadre’s first desk was at the Kushner Cos.’ Manhat- FUNDING: $246 million; latest valua- financial firms to screen employees’
KIM KULISH/GETTY IMAGES

tan headquarters, and its first two deals were for proper- tion of $3 billion
BONA FIDES: 8 million customers from
ties the Kushners would operate: four Queens apartment over 100 countries; USDC has a re-
buildings purchased for $55 million, and a multifamily cent market value of $335 million
property in Chatham, New Jersey, with a $100 million COFOUNDER & CEO: Jeremy Allaire, 47,
also founded publicly traded Bright-
price tag. That allowed Williams to prove real estate cove online video platform
1
SOURCE: PITCHBOOK.
email and instant messages for
misconduct.
FUNDING: $110 million
BONA FIDES: Users include Goldman
Sachs, UBS and Point72
FOUNDER & PRESIDENT: Tim Estes, 39

MARCH 2019 FORBES INDONESIA | 59

F I N T E C H

could be funded on the Web, and it allowed him to

THE FORBES FINTECH50
Earnin
PALO ALTO, CA
A mobile app that
allows workers to
tap up to $500 of already earned
pay before payday. Charges no inter-
est or set fees, instead asking cus-
tomers to “tip” what they want.
FUNDING: $190 million; latest valua-
tion of $800 million1
BONA FIDES: Users from 50,000 com-
panies, including Starbucks
COFOUNDER & CEO: Ram Palaniappan,
45, former president of RushCard
Enigma
NEW YORK CITY
Integrates 100,000-plus real-world
data sets. See story, p. 62.
FUNDING: $130 million; estimated val-
uation of $750 million
BONA FIDES: Clients include MetLife
and BlackRock
COFOUNDERS: CEO Hicham Oudghiri,
34; chairman Marc DaCosta, 34
Even
OAKLAND
A budgeting and savings mobile app
that links to users’ bank accounts, asks
about upcoming bills and estimates
how much they have left to spend.
Employees can pay $8 a month to
get access to money they’ve already
earned ahead of payday.
FUNDING: $51 million; latest valuation
of $102 million1
BONA FIDES: More than 400,000
users from big-name companies,
including Walmart and Kronos
COFOUNDERS: CEO Jon Schlossberg,
31; COO Quinten Farmer, 28
Forter
NEW YORK CITY
Its machine-learning software consid-
ers such factors as location, browsing
history and the device a would-be
buyer is using to judge if an online
credit card purchase is fraudulent.
FUNDING: $100 million
BONA FIDES: Customer base of 100-
plus retailers, including Nordstrom
COFOUNDERS: CEO Michael Reitblat,
36; president Liron Damri, 36; and
chief analyst Alon Shemesh, 41
Fundrise
WASHINGTON, D.C.
A crowdfunding platform that allows
investment of as little as $500 in a vari-
ety of diversified real estate portfolios.
FUNDING: $59 million; latest valuation
of $800 million
BONA FIDES: Manages $2.5 billion of
property with $500 million in equity
COFOUNDER & CEO: Ben Miller, 42
Gemini
NEW YORK CITY
Founded by 37-year-old twin broth-
ers Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss.
Its cryptocurrency exchange is li-
censed as a New York trust company
and approved to do business in 49
states. Leading the fight for an SEC-
approved bitcoin ETF.
FUNDING: Financed by the brothers
Employs 200 people
BONA FIDES:
COFOUNDER & CEO: Tyler Winklevoss
Guideline
SAN MATEO, CA
raise $18.5 million in a first venture round in March
2015, with blue-chip investors such as Thiel’s Founders
Fund, Boston’s General Catalyst, Vinod Khosla’s Khosla
Ventures—and Josh’s Thrive Capital.
“Jared’s contributions early on were critical,” Wil-
liams says. “We would not have accelerated to where
we are without that help and support. I didn’t have any
[other] operators who believed in this model.”
Slowly, more players came around. Cadre has already
worked with 17 real estate operators, who have tapped a
new pool of investors drawn in by the easy interface and
attractive fee structure. Cadre charges 1% up front, plus
1.5% annually on the equity value it oversees and also
claims a small portion of the 15% cut of profits kept by
the real estate operating partners. But unlike many tra-
ditional real estate investment managers, it doesn’t grab
an additional 20% of profits as a “performance” fee.
In 2015, Williams also struck a key alliance with Soros
Fund Management, the investment operation of George
Soros (thus making the far-right’s favorite bogeyman part-
ners with the family of the left wing’s favorite bogeyman).
Soros took an equity stake in Cadre and provided a $250
million financing backstop: If a real estate operator agrees
to do a project with Cadre and Williams can’t raise enough
equity online to fund it, Soros will step in.
So far Williams hasn’t had to tap the backstop, likely
in part because of the lower fees but also because Cad-
re’s veteran investing team bless each transaction. “Far
from being ignorant of the investment-management is-
sues, Williams showed he actually thought about them
VENTURE CAPITALIST
AND LIBERTARIAN
PETER THIEL IS
DONALD TRUMP’S
MOST PROMINENT

Flywire SILICON VALLEY

BOSTON
Helps colleges, hospitals and busi-
nesses speed up receipt of tuition
and other payments made in foreign
Partners with advisors and em-
ployers to offer 401(k)s for an ini- BACKER. HIS FOUNDERS
tial setup fee of $500, plus $8 per
month per worker. Portfolios have FUND WAS AN EARLY
INVESTOR IN CADRE.
fees averaging 0.06%. Employees
can set their own allocation or follow
personalized recommendations.
DAVID PAUL MORRIS/BLOOMBERG

currencies at a fee of 2% to 3%—

about half what banks charge.
FUNDING: $142 million; latest valua-
tion of $700 million1
BONA FIDES: Processed $4 billion in
2018; has 900 higher-education cus-
tomers, including seven of the eight
Ivy League colleges
CEO: Mike Massaro, 40
FUNDING: $59 million; latest valuation
of $170 million1
BONA FIDES: Has signed up 6,000 and came up with solutions,” says Matthew Botein, an
small business plans; partner with
benefits administrator Gusto
alum of BlackRock and Blackstone who has personally
COFOUNDERS: CEO Kevin Busque, 40, invested in Cadre.
a former TaskRabbit exec; CTO Mike
Nelson, 31; chief designer Jeremy
In short order, Williams had Cadre positioned for start-
Caballero, 36 up greatness. This, however, was all before November 2016.

60 | FORBES INDONESIA MARCH 2019

JOSH KUSHNER, WHO SAYS he did not vote for iCapital Network
NEW YORK CITY
Trump, has previously told Forbes about how he experi-
enced election night 2016—midair, on a flight to Califor-
nia, realizing that he had a lot of work to do to calm his An online platform that allows high-
net-worth individuals to invest in pri-
employees. The next week he met with 100 of them to as- vate equity and hedge funds with as
sure them that Jared Kushner in the White House would little as $100,000 per fund. A pend-
ing acquisition of Bank of America’s
not sink the ship. alternative investment feeder fund
Williams, who diplomatically declines to say whom he business will add $20 billion in client
assets to its current $6 billion.
voted for, followed the same game plan as his board mem-
ber after watching the results in Cadre’s office, calling an FUNDING: $80 million
BONA FIDES: Nearly 70,000 investor
all-hands meeting the following morning. “My message accounts, after B of A acquisition
was we have core values irrespective of what is happen- COFOUNDER & CEO: Lawrence Calcano,
56, a Goldman Sachs veteran
ing in Washington, and I will be transparent about Jared’s
plans and role,” Williams says. He then canceled all his
meetings for the next day and a half to conduct some 25
IEX
NEW YORK CITY
one-on-ones with employees, many of whom he had per-
sonally recruited from Goldman and other secure jobs.
“You don’t think as CEO you will have to be a chief psy- A stock exchange
built after the
chologist officer,” Williams says. 2010 “flash crash”
Still, he felt blindsided. “I realized things were going to that uses a “speed bump” to give
long-term investors a level playing
change,’’ he says. But “I did not expect the level of scrutiny field against high-frequency traders.
that would come.”
FUNDING: $100 million
As it became clear that Jared Kushner was heading to BONA FIDES: Has a 2.5% market share
the White House, Williams came to an arrangement with of U.S. equity trading
COFOUNDERS: CEO Brad Katsuyama,
him: Jared would step down from Cadre’s board of direc- 40 (above); president Ronan Ryan,
44; COO John Schwall, 46; CTO Rob
tors and relinquish a substantial portion of his equity—a Park, 40—heroes of Flash Boys
recognition, Williams explains, that Kushner would no
longer be able to advise Cadre as anticipated. But Jared Kabbage
still kept between 3% and 6% of Cadre, his most recent ATLANTA
federal asset-disclosure form suggests.
Jared Kushner’s decision to retain a stake in Cadre
Provides automated online approval
would have been problematic regardless. But his failure— of lines of credit for small business-
inadvertent, he says—to disclose his stake on his initial es, often in minutes, based on exten-
sive alternative data as well as bank
federal financial forms put the startup under a micro- records. Also licenses its technology
scope. Williams found himself repeatedly having to ex- to big banks such as ING.
plain the relationship in crucial meetings—for example, FUNDING: $489 million; latest valua-
when he went out in 2017 to raise a new $68 million ven- tion of $1.2 billion1
BONA FIDES: Has processed $6 billion
ture round led by Andreessen Horowitz. in loans to 150,000-plus businesses
Yet the stumbles keep occurring. Last year the Associ- COFOUNDERS: CEO Rob Frohwein, 50;
ated Press reported that Kushner Cos. had filed paper- president Kathryn Petralia, 48
work with New York City falsely stating there had been
no rent-regulated tenants living in the Queens apart- Lemonade
NEW YORK CITY
ments listed on Cadre when applying for construction
permits in 2015. Bloomberg News followed up with a
suggestion that the resale of the improved apartments The mobile and online platform pro-
vides renters’ insurance from $5 a
in 2017—the only exit so far on Cadre’s platform—might month and homeowners’ from $25 a
have been less profitable had there been proper disclo- month. Discourages dishonest claims
by donating excess (over claims, ex-
sure. Cadre said it didn’t know about the issue and that penses and a fixed fee) to charity.
administrative filings were the responsibility of its oper-
FUNDING: $180 million
ating partners, in this case Kushner Cos., which said its BONA FIDES: Has more than 300,000
filings were prepared by third parties. customers; recently partnered with
WeWork to insure WeLive residents
Williams has tacked away from the Kushner Cos., COFOUNDERS: CEO Daniel Schreiber,
claiming he’s now bearish on the New York market. Cad- 47; COO Shai Wininger, 45
1
SOURCE: PITCHBOOK.
MARCH 2019 FORBES INDONESIA
LendingHome
SAN FRANCISCO
An automated lending platform that
provides bridge loans, funded by
accredited investors and institutions,
to house flippers in 26 states.
FUNDING: $166 million; latest valua-
tion of $1 billion
BONA FIDES: More than $3.5 billion in
loans funded
COFOUNDER & CEO: Matt Humphrey, 31
Marqeta
OAKLAND
A credit card processor that makes
it easier for businesses that issue
workers cards to manage which
transactions are authorized.
FUNDING: $116 million; latest valua-
tion of $545 million1
BONA FIDES: Customers include
Square, Kabbage, Affirm and Brex
COFOUNDER & CEO: Jason Gardner, 49
Nova Credit
SAN FRANCISCO
Standardizes in-
formation from
credit reporting
bureaus in India,
Mexico, the U.K.,
Canada and other countries so U.S.
lenders and landlords can serve im-
migrants without a U.S. credit re-
cord.
FUNDING: $20 million
BONA FIDES: Used by Yardi, a major
property management platform, to
help screen housing applicants
COFOUNDERS: CEO Misha Esipov, 30
(above); COO Nicky Goulimis, 30;
CTO Loek Janssen, 29, conceived
Nova as graduate class project at
Stanford
Opendoor
SAN FRANCISCO
Uses data and algorithms to value
and buy homes (sight unseen) in
20 local markets, delivering cash to
sellers in days, minus an average 7%
service charge. Makes any needed
repairs and then resells the homes.
FUNDING: $1 billion; latest valuation
of $2 billion-plus
BONA FIDES: SoftBank Vision Fund
recently invested $400 million
COFOUNDERS: Executive chairman
Keith Rabois, 49, a senior partner at
Khosla Ventures who came up with
the idea; CEO Eric Wu, 36; CTO Ian
Wong, 32; JD Ross, 28
| 61
F I N T E C H
THE FORBES FINTECH50
Personal Capital
REDWOOD CITY, CA
An online wealth management plat-
form that offers free dashboard to
track all your bank and investing
accounts plus free planning tools.
Paying customers get money man-
agement, tax loss harvesting and
human financial advisors for tiered
fees—0.89% of assets a year up to
$1 million, down to 0.49% for assets
over $10 million.
FUNDING: $130 million; latest valua-
tion of $660 million
BONA FIDES: Manages $8 billion in
assets for 19,000 paying customers
CEO: Jay Shah, 49, who joined Per-
sonal Capital from E-Loan in 2009
Plaid
SAN FRANCISCO
Connects payment
apps like Venmo
and robos like Bet-
terment to users’ bank accounts to
transfer and track funds and speed
authentication. Now integrates with
10,000 banks.
FUNDING: $310 million; latest valua-
tion of $2.65 billion
BONA FIDES: A fourth of Americans
have accounts linked through Plaid
COFOUNDER & CEO: Zach Perret, 31
Poynt
PALO ALTO, CA
Its point-of-sale software and hard-
ware turn dumb credit card readers
into smart devices that allow third-
party developers to build applica-
tions on top, e.g., loyalty rewards
programs that don’t require shop-
pers to flash a card.
FUNDING: $132 million; latest valuation
of $450 million1
BONA FIDES: 100,000 devices in field
COFOUNDER & CEO: Osama Bedier, 43,
the founder of Google Wallet
Remitly
SEATTLE
Enables people living in rich nations
such as the U.S. and U.K. to make
low-cost money transfers to relatives
in Mexico, India and other develop-
ing countries even if the recipients
don’t have bank accounts.
62 | FORBES INDONESIA MARCH 2019
FUNDING: $175 million; latest valuation
of $480 million1
BONA FIDES: Processing more than
$6 billion in transfers annually
COFOUNDER & CEO: Matt Oppen-
heimer, 36, who came up with idea
while working for Barclays in Kenya
Ripple
SAN FRANCISCO
Its blockchain-based global set-
tlements network aims to replace
SWIFT, the interbank messaging
platform. Also has service that lets
companies make cross-border pay-
ments in XRP, the cryptocurrency
created by Ripple’s founders.
FUNDING: $94 million; latest valuation
of $5 billion (including XRP)
BONA FIDES: 200 RippleNet custom-
ers, including Bank of America and
American Express
COFOUNDERS: Jed McCaleb, 44; Chris
Larsen, 58; and Arthur Britto
CEO: Brad Garlinghouse, 48, former
AOL president
Robinhood
MENLO PARK, CA
Offers commission-free trading of
stocks, ETFs, options and cryptocur-
rencies through a mobile app and
online. Gold service, starting at $6
per month, gives investors access to
extended trading hours and margin
trading.
FUNDING: $539 million; latest valua-
tion of $5.6 billion
BONA FIDES: 6 million-plus customers
COFOUNDERS & CO-CEOS: Baiju Bhatt,
34; Vlad Tenev, 32
Roofstock
OAKLAND
Platform provides
investor tools
for evaluating,
buying and sell-
ing single-family
rental homes in 41 markets.
Guarantees up to 12 months
of rent on a vacant property
purchased through the platform.
FUNDING: $75 million; latest valuation
of $292 million1
BONA FIDES: More than $1 billion in
transactions completed on platform
COFOUNDERS: CEO Gary Beasley, 53
(above); chairman Gregor Watson,
38; Rich Ford, 49
re hasn’t bought assets with Kushner Cos. since those
two initial proof-of-concept transactions in 2015.
New deals or not, there are limits to what Williams
can do to quiet the noise so long as Jared Kushner retains
his stake. For instance, Cadre recently launched an in-
vestment program to take advantage of the opportunity-
zone tax breaks, which the White House put in motion.
And the headaches are just getting bigger: On January 4,
the group Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Wash-
ington formally asked the Justice Department to inves-
tigate Ivanka Trump’s involvement with the implemen-
tation of opportunity zones as a possible violation of the
federal conflict-of-interest laws. In her financial state-
ments, it noted, Trump had promised to recuse herself
from issues that “would have a direct and predictable ef-
fect on Cadre” because of her husband’s ownership posi-
tion. One more headline—and an email from Williams to
his staff reminding them not to be distracted.
CADRE NONETHELESS KEEPS moving forward. So
far, Williams’ platform has raised more than $500 mil-
lion in equity to finance the acquisition of $2 billion
worth of property from New York to San Diego in 22
separate deals. A drop in the $14 trillion U.S. commer-
cial real estate bucket but enough to confirm the idea of
syndicating quality commercial real estate online. New
deals are now selling out in weeks. Cadre is shooting for
annual returns in the low to mid-teens; its only realized
deal netted a 16% internal rate of return.
In October, it launched a managed portfolio product
that lets clients commit as little as $25,000 per deal, across
ten projects. In other words, they can get a diversified
commercial real estate portfolio with just a quarter-mil-
lion dollars and no heavy lifting when it comes to screen-
ing assets. Goldman Sachs has committed $250 million
from its private wealth clients to the managed portfolios.
At the same time, Williams’ secondary market finally
launched, allowing Cadre clients to sell their stakes in
real estate assets with the click of a button—an attempt
to end the buy-it-and-you’re-stuck downside of indi-
vidual real estate transactions. So far there have been 40
secondary trades at an average 3% premium to the last
valuation. Buyers and sellers each pay Cadre a 1.5% com-
mission. Right now, only Cadre stakes can be resold, but
Williams aspires to turn Cadre into the StubHub for all
property stakes. “That’s how we move from digital man-
ager to curated marketplace,” Williams says. For now,
though, his biggest practical challenge is getting enough
good inventory, since top real estate developers don’t
need websites to raise money. Has the Kushner connec-
tion perhaps scared some away? “Where this noise has
the greatest impact is probably in areas I don’t know,’’
Williams responds.
 It raises the largest question surrounding Cadre. Root Insurance Tala
COLUMBUS, OH SANTA MONICA, CA
Why hasn’t Jared Kushner simply divested and spared
his protégé (and his brother) such an incredible hassle?
Especially when provisions of tax law facilitate just such Sells app-centric car insurance in 22 Makes microloans
states with pricing heavily based on of $10 to $500 to
transactions, allowing Kushner to sell and defer taxes on how an individual drives during test borrowers in de-
his gain in Cadre’s stock. period, monitored by app. veloping countries by crunching data
from their smartphones (including
Perhaps it’s because he has lousy role models. By not FUNDING: $171 million; latest valuation merchant transactions, app usage,
shedding his assets to take the biggest job in the world, of $1 billion texts and calls) to judge if they’re
BONA FIDES: Claims average driver creditworthy. More than 85% of ap-
the billionaire president flouts all sorts of clear conflict- saves $1,187 per year proved customers receive credit in
of-interest and emoluments norms, down to ticky-tack COFOUNDERS: CEO Alex Timm, 30; less than 10 minutes.
CTO Dan Manges, 33
spending by lobbyists and potentates at Trump’s hotel in FUNDING: $105 million, plus recent
D.C. and his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. The near-bil- PayPal investment (undisclosed size)

lionaire secretary of commerce Wilbur Ross has lied and Stash BONA FIDES Has originated $680 mil-
lion in loans to 2.5 million-plus cus-
NEW YORK CITY tomers, with 90% repayment rate
bumbled his way into insider trading accusations and a
FOUNDER & CEO: Shivani Siroya, 36,
reprimand from the federal government’s top ethics of- former Citigroup and UBS analyst
ficer. Tycoon Carl Icahn took a role as special advisor to A mobile investing app that offers
commission-free and fractional pur-
the president while remaining in charge of his massive chases of stocks and ETFs, themed Toast
investment firm. And so on. investment portfolios and IRAs. BOSTON
Users with less than $5,000 pay
$1 a month; others pay 0.25% of as-
sets a year.
Started in 2011 by three MIT grads, it

THE FORMER CHIEF FUNDING: $117 million; recent valua-

tion of $350 million1
makes point-of-sale devices for res-
taurants and can handle such tasks

OFREAL ESTATE BONA FIDES 3 million customers

COFOUNDERS: CEO Brandon Krieg,
as managing food inventory.

GIANT VORNADO,
FUNDING: $248 million; latest valua-
44; president Ed Robinson, 35 tion of $1.4 billion

MIKE FASCITELLI IS
BONA FIDES: Tens of thousands of
Stripe customers, including Jamba Juice

A LONGTIME PAL OF
COFOUNDERS: Co-presidents Aman
SAN FRANCISCO
Narang, 36, and Steve Fredette, 35;
CTO Jonathan Grimm, 33
DONALD TRUMP. HE
NOW HEADS CADRE’S
Originally a
service to help Tradeshift
small online sellers process pay- SAN FRANCISCO
INVESTMENT ments, now serves Microsoft and
Amazon, too. Adding new products,
COMMITTEE. including credit card issuing tech-
nology and point-of-sale software. Processes payments for supply-
chain transactions, handling every-
FUNDING: $685 million; latest valua- thing from “know your customer”
tion of $20 billion regulatory checks to advice on how
quickly to pay a supplier.
Or perhaps it’s ego. Kushner surely helped Cadre get BONA FIDES: Most highly valued
private fintech company in the U.S.
on its way. Maybe it’s too hard to see Cadre become a COFOUNDERS: CEO Patrick Collison,
FUNDING: $400 million; latest valua-
tion of $1.2 billion
unicorn and not be part of it. He wouldn’t be the first co- 30 (above); president John Collison, BONA FIDES: Processes $500 billion in
28, Irish-born brothers payments a year for 500 customers
founder who’d rather see his creation founder with him
COFOUNDERS: CEO Christian Lanng,
than flourish without him. Or maybe, in the White House
bubble, he can’t fully see the problems that occur when a
Symphony 40; SVP Mikkel Brun, 50; SVP Gert
Sylvest, 47
PALO ALTO, CA
person who helps set national policy will benefit from the
governmental decisions he makes. TransferWise
An encrypted platform that allows LONDON
Or maybe it’s just the money. Regardless, while Wil- competing firms to communicate
liams won’t address the question directly, his hands are without compromising their data
or breaching compliance rules.
tied: “We don’t have any real mechanisms unless it’s crimi- Customers have developed more
Makes money transfers cheaper
by matching unrelated customers’
nal or gross negligence. I can’t force anybody, really, to sell than 500 automation bots using orders, so less currency crosses bor-
Symphony.
their equity.” ders. Fees average 0.5%, compared
STEPHEN YANG/BLOOMBERG

with roughly 5% for banks.

As for the political noise, “I try not to take it personally,” FUNDING: More than $300 million; lat-
est valuation of $1 billion-plus
Williams says. “But I am a human being, and I think the BONA FIDES: Used by 390 firms with
FUNDING: $397 million; latest
valuation of $1.6 billion
team would tell you they sometimes feel bad.” The media more than 400,000 users BONA FIDES: $4 billion processed
monthly for 4 million-plus customers
and the rest of the country may be obsessed with Trump FOUNDER & CEO: David Gurlé, 52, a
veteran of Thomson Reuters, Skype COFOUNDERS: CEO Kristo Käärmann,
and his family, he adds, “but I live, eat, breathe Cadre.” F and Microsoft 38; chairman Taavet Hinrikus, 36
1
SOURCE: PITCHBOOK.

MARCH 2019 FORBES INDONESIA | 63

F I N T E C H

DATA’S
CARTOGRAPHERS
Two philosophers are using machine learning and artificial intelligence
to create a real-time map of the global economy, and the world’s largest
financial firms are lining up at its door.

BY A N TO I N E G A R A

In the early days,

Enigma’s Marc DaCosta
and Hicham Oudghiri
funded their startup
by hawking goods
on eBay and building
websites for companies
like Siggi’s yogurt.

64 | FORBES INDONESIA MARCH 2019

 OW MUCH DID THE FED-
ERAL government shutdown
cost? After 35 days of deadlock,
$6,354,845,148 in wages had gone
unpaid to 747,573 federal employ-
ees. Every second that ticked by
added $2,118 to the figure. Some
staffers were furloughed; many more worked with-
out pay. At the Department of Homeland Security, for
example, some 245,405 employees were unpaid and
32,706 furloughed. At Treasury, 36,309 workers were
furloughed and 82,336 worked unpaid. At the Environ-
mental Protection Agency, 52% of its staffers worked
without compensation.
Getting a handle on the magnitude of this disrup-
tion—as well as its granular details—was no small feat.
A little-known New York City fintech company named
Enigma tabulated the rising costs in real time on a web-
site it threw up called Government Shutdown 2018–2019.
In order to do so, Enigma searched the Office of
Management & Budget’s contingency plans for 109 fed-
eral departments. It also tapped FederalPay.org for aver-
age salaries and worker counts for 46 agencies. In all, it
combed through 2,000 pages and 2 million spreadsheet
rows of federal data to create the tracker. From idea to
launch, the effort took three Enigma number crunchers
a total of 36 hours.
The shutdown data is available free, but Enigma’s
ability to rapidly make sense of multiple disconnected
data sources, public and private, and create a customiz-
able view of the global economy has attracted some of
the world’s leading companies, from BlackRock to Pay-
Pal and Celgene, with many clients paying more than $1
million a year for fingertip access to its insights.
Enigma is the brainchild of Hicham Oudghiri and
Marc DaCosta, best friends since they met 16 years ago
as undergraduates at Columbia University, where they
studied philosophy. Their startup organizes informa-
tion from thousands of sources around the world into a
single, fully linked interface.
“People know how the internet works and how to
log users and serve them cookies to suggest products on
Amazon. That problem is solved. What we’re doing is
building a model of the real world,” says Oudghiri, 34,
speaking from Enigma’s Humboldt boardroom, named
after the Enlightenment-era Prussian philosopher. His
cofounder, DaCosta, 34, adds, “This isn’t just about a
JAMEL TOPPIN FOR FORBES

faster microprocessor or better statistics. Enigma is a

knowledge graph of what’s going on in the economy.”
Oudghiri and DaCosta’s journey into the field of data
mining began after the financial crisis of 2008. DaCosta
was doing graduate work in the cultural anthropology

MARCH 2019 FORBES INDONESIA | 65

F I N T E C H
of data at the University of California, Irvine, while
Oudghiri was managing renewable-energy projects for
BCME Bank in Casablanca, Morocco. Both were curious
about explaining the world in light of the global disrup-
tions going on. So they reunited and began to organize
sets of publicly available data, starting with Federal Avi-
ation Administration flight logs. They soon discovered
a trove of valuable information hiding in plain sight—
buried in government logs, university research publica-
tions, arcane business filings and shipping manifests. If
they could collect, scrub, organize and analyze it, they
thought, it might produce a near real-time rendering of
the macro economy.
In 2011, Oudghiri and DaCosta formed Enigma and
went to work amalgamating public data, mostly from
government sources like the Census Bureau, the FCC,
the Federal Election Commission and the IRS, as well as
import records from the U.S. Customs & Border Protec-
tion agency and building permits, and putting it together
as a single source. They also became experts in uncov-
ering complex, hard-to-find information. For instance,
using Freedom of Information Act requests, Enigma taps
the CBP’s Automated Manifest System to track every
container ship that arrives in the U.S., including the im-
porter and port of call. From the National Fire Inci-
dent Reporting System, Enigma retrieves the cause and
location of every fire in the U.S. To cover energy, Enigma
leans on oil-well data from the Railroad Commission of
Texas, founded in 1891 to establish tariffs.
The firm’s breakthrough year was 2014, when
Enigma raised $4.5 million from Comcast, American
Express and the New York Times Co. and entered the
Fintech Innovation Lab, created by Accenture and the
Partnership Fund for New York City. There, embed-
ded with banks and Wall Street giants, Oudghiri and
DaCosta discovered that their data had immense utility
in financial services. Its information could be connect-
ed with customer data in banks’ systems, helping them
more quickly recognize fraud or businesses and individ-
uals to underwrite. “We walked out with a battle plan,”
DaCosta says of the accelerator. They quickly built a
software package, complete with colorful knowledge
graphs, and put specialized tools into a compliance in-
terface they called Dossier.
To date, Enigma has synthesized 100,000 data sets
in more than 100 countries, organized intelligence
on 30 million small businesses and accumulated 140
billion points of data on the U.S. population. It has
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mapped every molecule used by the U.S. pharmaceuti-
cal industry, as well as all trials, patent filings and ad-
verse events.
Braininess permeates Enigma’s headquarters in New
York’s Flatiron District: Conference rooms are named
after philosophers like Michel de Montaigne and Au-
gustine. Bookshelves are filled with scholarly tomes,
from coding manuals like Machine Learning for Hack-
ers and Data Quality and Record Linkage Techniques to
classics like the Dialogues of Plato, Ulysses and Rous-
seau’s Confessions. Covering the walls are maps and ex-
perimental artwork exploring “the intersection of data
and experience.”
But Enigma’s nerdy academic culture hasn’t stopped
it from attracting corporate clients and funding from
Silicon Valley and Wall Street. BlackRock, PayPal,
American Express, MetLife, BB&T, Celgene, Merck and
EMD Millipore have signed up. Some $130 million in
capital has flowed into the firm in the past seven years
from venture investors like NEA, Crosslink Capital and
Glynn Capital and hedge funds like Two Sigma Ventures
and Third Point Ventures.
Forbes estimates Enigma’s valuation is $750 million,
with revenues pushing $30 million annually, the com-
pany having doubled its customer base in 2018.
If a hedge fund wants to know which restaurant
chains are growing the fastest, Enigma can check FCC
logs for radio licenses, which are required to open
drive-through windows. Insurers use Enigma for risk
assessment, and pharma companies query its data-
crunching machines to improve drug safety.
Want to quickly and precisely identify the best can-
didates for small business loans? Instead of cold-calling
storefronts or schmoozing local Chamber of Commerce
officials, Enigma will synthesize property-tax filing in-
formation with state business filings and Uniform Com-
mercial Code liens to come up with automated credit
identities. Need to avoid underwriting in risky fire
zones? Why not sew together data sets on emergency-
call logs and building permits?
At MetLife, chief digital officer Greg Baxter is start-
ing to use Enigma data pulled from public health sys-
tems and universities by connecting it to its own sys-
tems to detect pockets of illness or risk and to improve
underwriting. And in MetLife’s $588 billion investment
management arm, Baxter is using Enigma data to quan-
tify how the quality of restaurants, parks and commu-
nity event spaces affects real estate prices. “They dis-
cover data sources, they organize the data and then they
find ways through machine learning of connecting the
data,” Baxter says. “When you combine that external
data with our internal domain data, then you start to get
phenomenally predictive and insightful trends.”
Investor John Fogelsong of Glynn Capital thinks
the startup could present a threat to legacy closed-
system “big box” technology vendors like Oracle, IBM,
SAS and SAP: “Each new data set Enigma ingests com-
pounds the company’s ability to improve a customer’s
business processes.”
BlackRock’s recent experience is illustrative. When
Frank Cooper, its newly minted chief marketing offi-
cer, was asked to shake up how the $6-trillion-in-assets
firm prospects for clients, Enigma made a surprising
discovery: Contrary to the traditional approach based
on regional and demographic targeting, there was little
correlation between a client’s location and his or her
preparedness for retirement, but political engagement
ranked high. “If someone is politically active and even
if they are a renter, they’re much more likely to plan for
retirement,” Cooper says. “It was shocking for us.”
Not all of Enigma’s machine-learning algorithms
are trained on the hot pursuit of profits. The firm has
volunteered its data efforts toward studying the gender
gap across 558 occupations and has already identified
that some of the most egregious disparities occur in ac-
counting, retail and sales.
After a November 2014 fire killed five people in a
smoke-detector-less home in New Orleans, Enigma
worked with the city’s fire department and Office of
Performance & Accountability to identify areas where
fire safety is weakest.
On Enigma’s public website, it offers national fire-
incident data free for city planners to use, and 50 years
of weather anomalies in the U.S., plus nationwide data
sets on everything from cancer statistics to so-called ad-
verse events, as defined by the FDA. In New York City,
for example, an Enigma FOIA allowed it to synthesize
years of rail incident and injury data reported to the
Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The firm is also
working with a nonprofit called Polaris to combat and
prevent slavery and human trafficking. The idea is that
data can not only lead to better underwriting but also
improve government. Oudghiri and DaCosta call it “data
for social good.”
Is Enigma vulnerable to the kind of data-usage scan-
dals that have plagued Facebook?
“I think the behavior from the internet companies
has been suspicious if not malicious, creating a pic-
ture of your behavior that is probably above and beyond
what you would consent to,” Oudghiri says, arguing that
Enigma’s work with financial services firms strikes a
more mutually beneficial covenant.
“Your data is a means to understand if you are a legiti-
mate person,” he says. “From a privacy standpoint, you
enter those relationships knowingly and explicitly. The
need for sharing data arises from a pretty good place.” F
MARCH 2019 FORBES INDONESIA | 67
F I N T E C H

COMMON
SENSE
PROPHET
Growing up in a two-bedroom Bronx apartment
shared by 12 family members, Wendy De La Rosa
learned to make every dollar count. Now the Wharton
and Goldman Sachs alum is helping fintech startups
understand how real people relate to money.

BY K R I S T I N S TO L L E R

ENDY DE LA ROSA, the 29-year-old cofounder of

Common Cents Lab, proudly recounts an experi-
ment she ran a few years back with Digit, an app that
tracks users’ spending and moves free cash from their
checking account into savings. One group of users was
sent a text message in February before they got their
federal tax refund, asking if they wanted to save part of
it. Another got a similar text right after the refund hit their checking account.
Those responding to the early message saved an average of 27%, versus 17% for
those who were texted later. When you consider the average refund is $2,900,
that’s an impressive chunk of extra savings. “Every dollar that leaves our check-
ing account, we feel that loss over and above the economic loss of that dollar. It
physically hurts us to lose money,” De La Rosa explains. In other words, it’s easi-
er to save money that you never saw in your checking account.
The 5-foot-1, ponytailed De La Rosa is a guru of one of the hottest trends in fin-
tech: Startups are increasingly designing (or tweaking) savings, investing, insur-
ance and employee-benefit products based on the insights of behavioral science. For
example, Lemonade, which sells renters’ and homeowners’ insurance, attempts to
discourage phony claims by donating excess profits (over its agreed-upon share) to
charity. Chime, an online bank with 2.6 million accounts, allows members to auto-
matically transfer 10% of every paycheck directly into their savings accounts. Why
10%? People “think in round numbers” when asked how much they want to save,
says De La Rosa, a member of the 2018 Forbes 30 Under 30 list for finance.
TIMOTHY ARCHIBALD FOR FORBES

In 2015, De La Rosa cofounded the Common Cents Lab, a nonprofit applied-re- As a child living in her grandmother’s
crowded Bronx apartment, Wendy De
search shop that aims to help low-to-moderate-income households increase their La Rosa says she would “put on my
financial wellbeing. Last year 93 companies and nonprofits applied to have their adult voice” to talk on the phone to bill
collectors and the landlord. She got the
services and customers used as guinea pigs in Lab experiments. Fourteen made job because she spoke the best English in
the cut. So far, De La Rosa has worked with 20 fintech startups, including 4 on the the immigrant household.
Forbes 2019 Fintech 50 list: Plaid, Chime, Credit Karma and Even. “It’s a mutu-

68 | FORBES INDONESIA MARCH 2019

MARCH 2019 FORBES INDONESIA | 69
F I N T E C H
ally beneficial relationship, where the researcher gets to
research what would otherwise be impossible and we get to
learn something [for free]. It’s like, why would we not?” says
Even CEO Jon Schlossberg, who has raised $51 million for
his startup, which offers budgeting apps and paycheck ad-
vance services through employers, most notably Walmart.
Common Cents operates under the umbrella of the Cen-
ter for Advanced Hindsight at Duke University, run by the
well-known behavioral scientist Dan Ariely, a Lab cofounder
and also the chief behavioral officer of Lemonade. But De La
Rosa works out of Palo Alto, where she’s completing a Stan-
ford Ph.D. in consumer behavior. It’s not just the lure of free
research that has would-be partners competing for her atten-
tions. De La Rosa says she’s seen a few startups (no, she won’t
name them) fail because they focused on slick technology and
artificial intelligence while ignoring basic human psychology.
A SELF-DESCRIBED HUSTLER, De La Rosa says her life
has always been centered around money—or the lack there-
of. At age 9, she immigrated to the U.S. from the Dominican
Republic with her mother, settling into her grandmother’s
small two-bedroom apartment in the Bronx along with
ten other relatives. De La Rosa picked up English quickly
(through school and the Cartoon Network) but had to re-
treat to the apartment’s one bathroom for needed quiet to
finish her homework. And finish she did. She was valedic-
torian of her public elementary and middle schools and of
Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx—the alma ma-
ter of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
Meanwhile, De La Rosa’s mom, a psychologist in her home
country, took what work she could find—as a hotel maid. “It
was very hard to see your educated mom clean rooms. She
sacrificed a lot because of me,” De La Rosa says. “I think that’s
where I started to fall in love with financial decision-making,
because when you are living in a certain circumstance where
every dollar really matters, it becomes a topic of conversation.”
So De La Rosa headed off to Wharton, where she stud-
ied finance and management, graduating summa cum laude
and Phi Beta Kappa in 2011. Her well-earned reward: a job
at Goldman Sachs. Having grown up poor, she wanted to
be able to help her family. “Working on Wall Street seemed
like the easiest, fastest way to get there,’’ she says. Fast, yes,
but not so satisfying for De La Rosa, who in 2014 went to
work with Ariely on a new behavioral economics unit at
Google. The next year, Ariely, De La Rosa and two other col-
leagues came up with the idea for the independent Common
Cents Lab and snagged millions in annual support from the
MetLife Foundation to make it happen.
Much of De La Rosa’s work involves what might seem
like obvious observations about human behavior. After all,
the save-it-before-you-see-it mind trick is a reason 401(k)
s have been so successful and why employers are now con-
sidering offering automatic payroll deposits to rainy-day
70 | FORBES INDONESIA MARCH 2019
funds. But there are lots of twists to applying those in-
sights in a useful fashion. Chime’s 10% automatic savings
deduction is taken from every paycheck. By contrast, banks’
traditional savings programs transfer money on a set day
each month—typically the 25th. Yet 70% of Americans get
paid on a weekly or biweekly basis, and a single date-linked
withdrawal can lead to bounced checks and overdrafts, says
De La Rosa. Not an inducement for saving.
Chime’s Bank Fee Finder is based on Common Cents’
research showing people dramatically underestimate how
much they pay in bank fees. Users go to Chime’s website,
link their current bank account and get a precise accounting
of how much they paid during the past year. The average—
around $300—is powerful marketing for no-fee Chime.
One of De La Rosa’s key lessons for partners: Humans
don’t like barriers and red tape, so make it easy for them to
change their behavior. In one recent experiment, a sample
of Credit Karma members were sent an email that said they
could raise their credit scores by reducing their credit card
utilization rate, suggesting they pay off a specific credit card
and providing a click-through button to allow them to do so.
While results aren’t yet public, De La Rosa says email recipi-
ents had a significant increase in credit scores compared with
other members who must log in, call up their credit scores
and then follow Credit Karma’s “credit coaching” advice.
In September, Common Cents got some competition.
Acorns, a member of the Fintech 50, launched a “Money
Lab” with Shlomo Benartzi, a professor of behavioral finance
at UCLA. They invited academics to submit proposals for
behavioral tests on the 4.5 million users of its microinvesting
and savings apps. The results produced by this not-for-profit
venture will be publicly available, even to Acorns’ competi-
tors. (Acorns has also been working with Richard Thaler of
the University of Chicago, who won a 2017 Nobel Prize for
his pioneering work in behavioral economics.)
Ariely says there’s a good reason startups are leading
the way in behavioral-driven innovation. At traditional
banks, he argues, “the incentives are to get people to over-
spend and overborrow. That doesn’t create an incentive to
innovate and make better decisions.” Not that the fintechs,
who must justify the hundreds of millions Silicon Valley
has poured into them, are all so pure. De La Rosa points
out a problem with free fintech services. “If you have a free
product, your only business model becomes advertising,”
she says. “So you get into the world of trying to sell people
things that they don’t necessarily need.”
Maybe not such a politic thing to say, given that Credit
Karma, a free service that rakes in hundreds of millions in
referral fees from credit cards, is one of her many research
partners. No matter. For De La Rosa, this is personal: “I
think I just see my family in every single experiment that I
run. I lived through that. I know exactly what it means to
be living paycheck to paycheck.” F
REALITY CHECK JAMES S. KALLMAN
A 30-YEAR VETERAN OF EMERGING MARKETS, JAMES S. KALLMAN IS THE SENIOR PARTNER OF GLOBAL ACCOUNTING AND CONSULTING FIRM, MOORES ROWLAND
(A MEMBER FIRM OF PRAXITY). JAMES IS REGULARLY QUOTED IN LOCAL AND INTERNATIONAL MEDIA.

EXCESS FAT IS BAD FOR YOU

WHILE some creatures Besides the fleet of private jets lined up at the air-
are highly adaptable in port, the discrepancy between rich and poor was
surviving changing condi- perhaps best illustrated by the sign “A day in the life
tions, the likes of the polar of a refugee” exhibition being directly above “pri-
bear on the other hand, vate car pick-up”.
are starving to death as the The subject was raised, for it’s an open secret that
warming climate deprives the world’s richest individuals and corporate entities
them of sea ice access to are not making the contribution to the global welfare
their regular diet of seals. that they should. As with climate change, however,
Count the poorest half talk in such an arena is unlikely to bring the urgent
of the world’s population as another group suffering action required to effect a drastic redistribution of
from a dwindling ‘fat’ supply, their net worth declin- wealth. Only one thing can change that, a serious re-
ing by 11% last year while the wealth of world’s 2,754 think on the global taxation system.
billionaires increased by $ 2.5 billion Suggestions have been made by the
per day. Some 3.5 billion people live Some 3.5 billion likes of US Representative Alexandria
on less than $5.50 per day, yet just 28 Ocasio-Cortez of a return to a progres-
of their richest cousins own the same people live on sive tax system that would see the richest
amount of money as the world’s poor- less than $5.50 Americans pay rates of 70% or more on
est half. sums in excess of $10 million. This is not
Compiled from data produced by
per day, yet without merits if such a system was in-
Credit Suisse, Oxfam’s Public Good or just 28 of their troduced on a global level, although the
Private Wealth? Report was released richest cousins threshold at which the highest rates kick
just prior to the annual get-together in in would have to be carefully considered.
Davos, Switzerland where the invited
own the same Companies offer other avenues to ex-
rich and influential fly in to address amount of plore such as carbon taxes, while execu-
the annual World Economic Forum. money as the tive salaries could be tied to a maximum

world’s poorest percentage of those of workers.

Not surprisingly, howls of protest
half. erupted, as thanks to friends in high
places we have seen the rise of a new
group of oligarchs in not just the US but a number
of other countries, who are quite prepared to pay
their way to maintain the status quo. Interestingly, it
was to avoid the re-emergence of any such powerful
group that high tax rates were introduced in Japan
following the Second World War.
With poverty the basic root cause of the vast major-
ity of current world conflict, the signs are already there
for any student of history – from the French to the Rus-
sian revolutions, things rarely go well when the people
rise against the oligarch, either singular or plural.
As life expectancy diminishes in both the US and UK,
ADOBE STOCK

particularly in poorer communities, the latest oligarchs

may yet learn that excess ‘fat’ really is bad for you. F

72 | FORBES INDONESIA MARCH 2019

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FORBES INDONESIA

PHILANTHROPY RESA BOENARD

T
he Bantar Gebang Inte-

The Princess
grated Waste Disposal Site
(Bantar Gebang) located
in Bekasi, West Java, is the
final disposal site for municipal solid

of the Dump
waste generated in Jakarta. Every day
around 1.300 trucks deliver more than
7.000 tonnes of waste from the city.
Excavators and bulldozers balance pre-
cariously on the towering mountains
Resa Boenard has
dedicated her life
empowering children
growing up on the largest
landfill in Southeast Asia.
BY MADDIE MANWARING

of garbage, some of which are up to

40 meters tall, as a row of trucks line
up waiting to dump another load of
waste on the pile. Covering 110 hect-
ares and with a capacity of 49 million
tonnes, Bantar Gebang is the largest
landfill in Southeast Asia and is evi-
dence of large-scale plastic pollution
and poor waste management. Cur-
rently the site is estimated to be at 39
million tonnes, and the Jakarta Envi-
ronment Agency predicts the landfill
will reach capacity by 2021.
Scattered amongst the mountains
are rows of houses, belonging to the
more than 3.000 families who live and
work on the landfill. Known as scaven-
gers or waste-pickers, these workers
have the never-ending job of sorting
the waste. They sell plastic, paper,
metals and glass for small amounts of
money. Life on the landfill is difficult
and workers, including children, suf-
fer from countless illnesses, injuries
and sometimes even death caused by
AGOES RUDIANTO FOR FORBES INDONESIA

harmful or contaminated waste, a lack

of protective gear, and workplace ac-
cidents. The hardships faced by those
making their living on the landfill have
contributed to severe mental health
issues that are left untreated and have
led to suicides. It is a life Resa Boenard
knows all too well.

74 | FORBES INDONESIA MARCH 2019

 Originally from West Sumatera, a successful person. It can happen,”
Resa’s family moved to Bantar Gebang Resa says.
when she was only eight. She remem- Resa, now 32, says she is proof that
bers her home was surrounded by people from Bantar Gebang can make
beautiful rice fields, which have since better lives for themselves, if they are
been swamped by millions of tons of motivated to continue their education.
Jakarta’s waste. Due to the negative This is why she and her friend John
stigma associated with living in Ban- Devlin co-founded the Kingdom of
tar Gebang, Resa was bullied at school BGBJ. BGBJ translates to ‘The Seeds of
and underestimated by teachers who Bantar Gebang’ and Resa believes that
like seeds that need to be
“I want to make something looked after to grow into
bigger. I want to make this trees, the children need to
be nurtured and supported
community stronger, I want to to grow into strong adults.
have a computer lab, I want to “I said ‘I want to make
provide the kids with a garden!” something bigger. I want
to make this community
thought she wasn’t capable of being stronger, I want to have a computer
anything more than a waste-picker. She lab, I want to provide the kids with a
recalls being told not to chase her goals garden!”
and accept life as it was: “Don’t dream BGBJ hosts ‘Sunday Fundays’ - a
too hard, Resa, it will hurt you.” day of classes and activities run by Resa
“I used this message to make me and a range of volunteers. Up to 100
even stronger, as motivation to get my children come along each week for les-
education.” She remembers thinking, sons in Indonesian, English, healthy
“No matter what, I will graduate from living and sustainability, and to join in
university one day.” activities such as basketball, yoga, box-
And with hard work, dedication ing, and art. BGBJ also provides a free
and the help of a sponsor family from lunch program for the children. Resa
the United Kingdom, Resa attended encourages each child that attends to
Gunadarma University and gradu- continue their education outside of
ated with a Bachelor in Information BGBJ, and has personally enrolled sev-
Technology. Unfortunately, the bully- eral students in local schools and sup-
ing and taunts from school followed ported them throughout their studies.
Resa to university where she became In running the programs, Resa receives
known as ‘The Princess of the Dump’, no government funding and relies on
a nickname she has since embraced private donations, investors, ecotour-
and is actually proud of. ism, and volunteers.
Due to low income and lack of Ecotourism has become one of
skills and education, opportunities their main sources of income. Tours of
are limited for the families and chil- Bantar Gebang cost Rp 200,000 ($14),
dren living in Bantar Gebang now. and for just Rp 350,000 ($25) a night
Just like Resa, those who do go to including meals, visitors can stay at
school are underestimated and face the BGBJ Hostel and experience the
daily bullying. Many children are realities of life on a landfill, take part
pressured by their parents to stay in Sunday Fundays, or volunteer in the
home, look after younger siblings, and workshop. Since opening the BGBJ
are told it’s better for them to work hostel in 2015, they have had more
on the landfill than to go to school. than 150 guests from around the world
“I said to the children that’s not – from tourists and backpackers, to
true. Maybe one day you’ll become journalists and students.
Resa says they ‘upcycle’ reclaimed
materials from the landfill and create
home wares and furniture to sell, one
of the most popular items are wooden
signs, which sell for Rp 400,000 ($29)
each. The team also sell T-shirts, and
using natural products they have cre-
ated a multi-purpose body balm, that
they sell for Rp 40,000 - Rp 100,000
($3-$7). Currently they are running a
crowd sourcing campaign to fund in-
frastructural improvements, includ-
ing to the classroom, building much-
needed toilets for the children’s area,
improving their workshop, creating
a garden and fixing the roof at the
Kingdom.
Resa’s efforts to provide education
for every child on the landfill are also
challenged from within the Bantar Ge-
bang community. Some families only
send children to BGBJ for the meals
they provide. Local Imams urge par-
ents not to send their children to BGBJ
as Resa is not teaching Islamic values
- she doesn’t include religion in the
BGBJ curriculum because she wants
children of any faith to feel welcomed.
And of course, many parents want to
their children to work on the landfill
and supplement the family’s income.
Despite these setbacks, she has big
plans for the children of BGBJ, and says
every child can turn their life around as
education provides them with the tools
and knowledge they need to go to uni-
versity, pursue a career, and break the
cycle of poverty.
Through social media posts, re-
cent news coverage and by speaking
at conferences across the country,
Resa is raising awareness of the dif-
ficulties facing the children of Bantar
Gebang, in the hopes to create inves-
tors, donations, sponsors, and volun-
teers for BGBJ.
“We are ready to collaborate,” she
says. “What can I do for these children?
I don’t have much money but I can find
people who want to support me.”
“I say to the children ‘never lose
hope and just keep going’.” F
MARCH 2019 FORBES INDONESIA | 75
FORBES INDONESIA

THE EYE BY YESSAR ROSENDAR

S
wiss luxury watchmaker
is well known for its fi-
nesse in combining various
materials into fine watch
making, founded in 1980 the brand
is the first luxury watch brand to
combine gold and natural rubber.
By pioneering the combination of
natural materials, which were never
previously found together, Hublot
known to become a modern-day
alchemist marrying the past and
the future, tradition and innova-
tion. A creative concept that dubbed
as the "Art of Fusion" by the brand
started in 2004, when Jean-Claude
Biver took over the control of the
brand and launched the Big Bang
Gold Ceramic, the first model in the
Big Bang collection. The watch has
als such as King Gold (an exclusive
Hublot gold containing 5% plati-
num), Hublonium (a brand new al-
loy of aluminum and magnesium),
sapphire, gold crystal, colored
ceramic, carbon fiber, tungsten,
titanium, gold, platinum,
rubber, precious stones, lin-
en, embroidery, leather and
texalium, among others.
Continuing its passion
for cutting-edge research
into the latest high-tech
materials, in 2012 Hublot
built its own foundry to
support its ongoing R&D
operations. The foundry
included a team dedi-
cated to fusion – the Metal-
lurgy and Materials Depart-

Horology BIG BANG

Unico
Titanium

Alchemist
recognizable lines featuring sharp
angles, six screws arranged around
the case, and bezel lugs on each
side, that symbolize the concept of
fusion. Ten years later it became the
brand's signature timepiece and a
veritable watch-making icon.
Since then, Hublot has launched
six collections – Big Bang, Classic
Fusion, Spirit of Big Bang, Manu-
facture Piece, Techframe and King
Power – housing movements rang-
ing from the most pared-back to the
most complicated (chronograph,
tourbillon, cathedral minute repeat-
er, GMT, etc.). These collections
have enabled Hublot to continue its
philosophy of combining materi-
ment. This enabled the brand to
commence in-house production
of Magic Gold, a scratch-resistant
18-carat gold developed in asso-
ciation with EPFL (Swiss Federal
Institute of Technology) at the end
of 2011. That same year,
the company also bought
the Swiss firm Profusion,
which specializes in the
manufacturing of car-
bon fiber components.
In addition, an in-house
electroplating depart-
ment continually tests
new metal treatments. In
2016, paying tribute to its
All Black concept, it un-
veiled the Big Bang Unico Sapphire
All Black, with a case made entirely
from smoked sapphire crystal.
Hublot is also a brand that has a
close relationship with football, as in
2006, the brand was appointed Of-

76 | FORBES INDONESIA MARCH 2019

ficial Licensed Partner of the Swiss
Football Team. Two years later, it
also became the Official Timekeep-
er for UEFA EURO 2008. In 2010,
Hublot was chosen as the first Of-
ficial Watch and Official Timekeeper
in the history of FIFA, and for sub-
sequent World Cup finals including
Brazil 2014 and Russia 2018. Some of
the watches that influenced by foot-
ball are the Official Watch of UEFA
EURO 2016 where the Unico manu-
facture calibre was equipped with a
patented self-winding bi-retrograde
module, allowing the duration of
a football match to be measured.
The next year in 2017, Hublot was
appointed Official Timekeeper of
the FIFA Confederations Cup. The
brand paid tribute to the eight-foot-
balling nations by creating a unique
series of interchangeable bracelets in
the colors of the competing coun-
tries for its iconic Big Bang Unico
CLASSIC FUSION
Aerofusion Chronograph
Orlinski Red Ceramic
Chronograph Retro-
grade model.
Hublot is also
heavily invest-
ed in the world
of motoring. In
2010, the brand
was chosen as the
Official Watch of
Formula 1. The fol-
lowing year, it signed
a partnership with
Ferrari as the Official
Timekeeper for Ferrari
and the Ferrari Challenge,
and Official Watch of the Scuderia
Ferrari, as well as being a partner to
Ferrari's special events. This partner-
ship between two of the big names in
watch-making and motor sport re-
sulted in no fewer than 25 revolution-
ary timepieces. Some of the fusion of
the materials from the partnership is
with the use from 2013 of carbon, the
ultra-lightweight material ubiquitous
in motor racing, mixed with titanium
in 2016 and used to decorate the be-
zel on the Big Bang Ferrari.
In 2017, to mark Ferrari's 70-year
anniversary, Hublot designed the
Techframe Ferrari Tourbillon Chro-
nograph, employing an identical ap-
proach to that
used by the Fer-
rari Centro Stile to
create a car. The
aim of this new
line in the Hublot
collections was to
produce a watch
with a visceral
bond to the Ferrari
DNA, combining
strength, perfor-
mance, beauty and
lightness, created
and developed by
the Hublot Manufacture.
One of the latest innovations
from the brand is the Classic Fusion
Aerofusion Chronograph Orlinski
that has been paired with Hublot's
patented red ceramic. Introduced
in Baselworld 2018, the watch is
the first ceramic to be created in
a vibrant color. The watch itself
amplifies the brand’s partnership
with Richard Orlinski, the world's
bestselling contemporary artist that
has been adding his angular style to
Hublot watches since 2017. Works
of art for the wrist, these feature
his signature facets, nuanced with
angles and edges. Like his sculp-
tures, the Classic Fusion Aerofusion
Chronograph Orlinski Red Magic
boasts the sharp three-dimensional
sculpted lines and polished finish
which are the artist's trademark.
The watch took four years to de-
velop and the ceramic created is
harder than previously seen. The
watch features a 45 mm case and
its sapphire case back reveals the
HUB1155 self-winding skeleton
chronograph movement. The Clas-
sic Fusion Aerofusion Chronograph
Orlinski Redi Magic is released in a
limited edition of 200 pieces. F
MARCH 2019 FORBES INDONESIA | 77
FORBES INDONESIA

THE EYE BY YESSAR ROSENDAR

Sportier trim features BMW M steering wheel and seats, BMW Individual headliner
in Anthracite, and exclusive interior trim strips in Aluminum. It also got a
bigger panoramic glass roof with a two-section glass surface with an overall

Enhancement length of 924 mm and a width of 890 mm. The car also offers a sportier
driving experience than the similarly sized BMW X3, with its wider track and
sportier steering setting. The car is priced at Rp 1.45 billion (off the road).

BMW Group Indonesia recently launched the

new BMW X4, the mid-sized SUV with coupe like
design has been further refined compared to the
previous generation. Now the car is longer by
81mm and wider by 37 mm, while lower by 3 mm
that will gives the car a sportier stance. The vari-
ant that available for the market will be the BMW
X4 xDrive30i M Sport X. The car uses a 2,000 cc
four-cylinder engine that can generate a peak
power of 252 horsepower and a peak torque of
350 Nm, the powerplant mated to an eight-speed
transmission and all-wheel drive system. Outside
and inside, the car is equipped with the latest in-
terior trim package, the M Sport X trim. The new-
ly designed trim emits an air of off-road-focused
sportiness, thanks to styling accents in Frozen
Grey (a color with rally racing connotations), as
well as the individually designed air intakes, side
skirts and rear under guard element. Inside the

Expedient Stay
PT Bank CIMB Niaga Tbk (CIMB Niaga) together with AccorHotels and
Mastercard recently launched its very first co-branded credit card in Indo-
nesia "CIMB Niaga Le Club AccorHotels Card". The new credit card aimed
to support the lifestyle of people who travel for both leisure and business,
by providing a variety of benefits and transaction convenience in AccorHo-
tels networks throughout the world. CIMB Niaga Le Club
AccorHotels cards are launched in two types, which are
Platinum for emerging consumers and World for fre-
quent travellers. This credit card will enable customers
to pay at over 4,600 AccorHotels properties in over 100
countries globally. Every transaction using this credit
card will earn reward points that can be exchanged for
free stays in AccorHotels properties worldwide. With a
more aspirational appeal, the CIMB Niaga Platinum Le
Club AccorHotels card comes with welcome bonuses,
exclusive offers, as well as access to AccorHotels events
and travel privileges. The same advantages and other
additional benefits will also be given to CIMB Niaga
World Le Club AccorHotels cardholders. CIMB Niaga
World Le Club AccorHotels cardholders will be able to
fast-track to Silver status membership with Accor Plus,
the Group’s hotel, dining and lifestyle program, which
includes a free night at selected AccorHotels’ proper-
ties in Asia Pacific (APAC) and 50% discount privileges
in over 1100 restaurants. In addition to these benefits,
CIMB Niaga Le Club AccorHotels credit card holders can
enjoy various benefits for their travel convenience. These
include free access to the Airport Lounge; insurance
protection for purchases, accidents and travel inconve-
niences; fixed-installment facilities with a light interest of
36 months; and competitive currency values.

78 | FORBES INDONESIA MARCH 2019

Attainable
undergoes a protocol involving 16 days of
testing, in five different positions at three
different temperatures. The Besançon

Complexity Observatory, operating on behalf of the

International Bureau of Weights and Mea-
sures, is the only independent, public or-
ganization able to inspect chronometers.
TAG Heuer recently introduced its latest Chronograph More than simply proof of quality and
Tourbillon Chronometer collection, a compelling high accuracy, this stamp certifies the watch
complication timepiece from the brand as it is one as a whole, not just the movement. The
of the most attainable watches with tourbillon on watch movement featuring two of tradi-
the market with a price below Rp 300 million. tional watch-making's most famous com-
One of the notable models on the collection is plications: a tourbillon and a chronograph.
the TAG Heuer Carrera "Tête de Vipère" Chro- The movement is housed in a dark blue
nograph Tourbillon Chronometer. It is the first ceramic case, complemented by a ceramic
chronograph watch from the brand to bear the bezel and lugs. Accents of blue can also be
prestigious "Tête de Vipère" stamp of excellence, seen on the weight and movement barrel.
awarded by the Besançon Observatory. Since With its polished, brushed and bead-
2006, only 500 watches have received this highly blasted finishes, and the "Tête de Vipère"
exclusive certification. The "Tête de Vipère" stamp stamp has been applied to the bridge,
was applied to a chronometer for the first time by visible through the sapphire crystal of the
the Besançon Observatory in 1897. This high-quality case back. The piece is complemented by
metrological guarantee is a mark of the high precision a black alligator strap, sewn onto rubber
and excellence of a watch, it was abandoned in the with blue stitching, and the model is a
1970s and then relaunched in 2006. To obtain this limited edition of 155 pieces released to
certificate of excellence, each fully assembled watch celebrate 55 years since the Heuer Carrera.

Cold Sip
Recently, Johnie Walker in collaboration with Game of Thrones introduced the White Walker
by Johnnie Walker. This limited edition Scotch whisky is inspired by the most enigmatic and
feared characters on the hit show - the White Walkers. This limited edition Scotch whisky
brings you right to the Frozen North as the liquid features Single Malts from Cardhu and
Clynelish – one of Scotland’s most Northern distilleries. Thanks to whisky specialist George
Harper, alongside the small team of expert blenders at Johnnie Walker, the liquid reflects
notes of caramelized sugar and vanilla, fresh red berries with a touch of orchard fruit. Best
served cold, the freezing effect creates a playful mouth feel. The cold softens the initial
notes, with smooth and cool flavors inviting consumers to investigate the deeper layers of
warmer, spice-forward notes. The
bottle's icy white and blue design
along with the iconic Johnnie
Walker Striding Man, now fash-
ioned in armor to fit in among
the ranks of the Night King’s icy
army of the undead. The limited
edition Scotch whisky is best
served cold and directly from the sensitive ink technology, fans will be
freezer. When chill-filtered to 1.5oC reminded that “Winter is Here” as the
degrees, the liquid develops in bottle reveals an unexpected graphic-icy
complexity as it warms to room reveal once frozen, echoing the chilling
temperature. Using temperature- presence of the White Walkers.

MARCH 2019 FORBES INDONESIA | 79

THOUGHTS ON

Patience
“Trying to “At present you need
understand is to live the question.
like straining Perhaps you will
through muddy
water. Have gradually, without
the patience to even noticing
wait! Be still and it, find yourself
allow the mud experiencing the
to settle.” answer, some
—LAO TZU distant day.”
—RAINIER MARIA RILKE

“I’M EXTRAORDINARILY
PATIENT, PROVIDED I GET “The drop of
MY OWN WAY IN THE END.” rain maketh a
—MARGARET THATCHER
hole in the
stone—not
by violence,
“THOUGH PATIENCE BE but by oft
falling.”

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: ALEXIS DUCLOS/GETTY IMAGES; HISTORICA GRAPHICA COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES; HERITAGE IMAGE PARTNERSHIP/ALAMY;
A TIRED MARE, YET SHE

HISTORICAL PICTURE ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES; ALTO VINTAGE IMAGES/ALAMY; FINE ART IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES; KIM KULISH/GETTY IMAGES; CULTURE
WILL PLOD.” —BISHOP
HUGH LATIMER
—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

“Rivers know “Hope begins “TREES THAT “Patience: a minor

this: There is in the dark—the ARE SLOW TO form of despair,
no hurry. We stubborn hope GROW BEAR disguised as
that if you just THE BEST
shall get there show up and try FRUIT.” a virtue.”
someday.” to do the right —MOLIÈRE
—AMBROSE BIERCE

—A.A. MILNE thing, the dawn

will come.” “TOLERATION IS THE
GREATEST GIFT OF

CLUB/GETTY IMAGES; LEBRECHT MUSIC & ARTS/ALAMY; HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES

—ANNE LAMOTT THE MIND.”
—HELEN KELLER

“Be worthy love, and

love will come.”
—LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

“PATIENCE AND FINAL

TIME DO MORE
THAN FORCE THOUGHT
“ALL HUMAN ERRORS “History cannot
AND RAGE.” be hurried.
STEM FROM IMPATIENCE: —JEAN DE LA FONTAINE
A PREMATURE BREAKING- Generations of
OFF OF METHODICAL “PREACH THE WORD, BE PREPARED IN SEASON reformers have
PROCEDURE, AN APPARENT AND OUT OF SEASON; CORRECT, REBUKE AND learned this to
FENCING-IN OF WHAT IS ENCOURAGE—WITH GREAT PATIENCE AND their cost.”
—MALCOLM FORBES
APPARENTLY AT ISSUE.” CAREFUL INSTRUCTION.” —2 TIMOTHY 4:2
—FRANZ KAFKA SOURCES: THE CYNIC’S WORD BOOK, BY AMBROSE BIERCE; FABLES, BY JEAN DE LA FONTAINE;
HENRY V, BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE; WINNIE-THE-POOH, BY A.A. MILNE; LETTERS TO A YOUNG
POET, BY RAINIER MARIA RILKE; LITTLE WOMEN, BY LOUISA MAY ALCOTT; BIRD BY BIRD, BY
80 | FORBES INDONESIA MARCH 2019 ANNE LAMOTT; TAO TE CHING, BY LAO TZU; THE ZÜRAU APHORISMS, BY FRANZ KAFKA.
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