ANGIN’s Angel Investor: Mardianto E. Danusaputro

Welcoming our new Angel, Mardianto E. Danusaputro

Mardianto E. Danusaputro is Chief Executive Officer of Mandiri Capital Indonesia (MCI), the corporate venture capital subsidiary of PT. Bank Mandiri (Persero) Tbk. MCI aims to provide equity funding for regional start-ups, with focus on the fintech sector. Eddi has more than 20 year’s working experience in various sectors, including consumer goods (at Procter & Gamble), management consulting (at AT Kearney and Booz Allen Hamilton) and financial services (including Morgan Stanley), whereby the majority of his work experience was in Singapore. In addition to working at large corporations, Eddi also has experience as an angel investor and social entrepreneur. Eddi graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta and also has a MBA degree from Duke University, USA and a Doctorate in Management from Universitas Indonesia.

[RECAP] Project Alpha

Last Thursday (9th of August), Meredith from ANGIN attended an event by Project Alpha, a new early-stage startup incubator created via partnership between AWS (Amazon Web Services) and Seed Plus. They’re on the lookout for the next breakout story so sign up here if you think you have what it takes!

The event hosted three brilliant speakers: Dayu Dara Permata(SVP GO-JEK, Co-Founder of GO-LIFE), Ahmed Aljunied (GO-LIFE VP of Engineering and Product) and Norman Sasono (Co-founder and CTO of Bizzy), each with their own take on how to create a successful startup. It was a great opportunity to learn more about the various intricacies involved in startup founding and meet with a lot of important ecosystem players. We hope it was as informative and inspiring to the many budding startup founders who were at the event as it was to us.

[RECAP] Teja Ventures x ANGIN – Gender Lens Investing: The Largest Arbitrage Opportunity Across Asia

Freeware Spaces was packed with startup ecosystem players on Tuesday, August 7th, mingling over dinner and excited to learn about a burgeoning topic: gender lens investing. One of ANGIN’s very own angels, Virginia Tan, the founder of Teja Ventures, spoke on the fine details of gender lens investment and why investors in China are blazing the way forward on this risk-mitigation, profit-friendly investment thesis. Joining her were accomplished speakers from the startup and VC space: Melina Subastian of Alpha JWC Ventures, Dea Surjadi of Golden Gate Ventures, and Florian Holm, former co-CEO of Lazada Indonesia.

Here are a few key takeaways from the event:

  1. Gender Lens Investment doesn’t just mean investing in female founders: You can invest in a male founder using gender lens as well. In fact, the entire founding team could be male. They just have to understand and effectively capture female users.
  2. Industries with largely women consumers are highly lucrative: And that doesn’t just mean period apps and baby diapers. Fintech and lending are words that people don’t necessarily associate with gender, but makes sense to view under a gender lens. After all, women and men borrow for very different reasons – women usually to provide for their families and increase the well-being of their communities. And because of this and other factors, repayment rates are higher amongst female borrowers. This boils down to risk management, plain and simple. Are most of your borrowers male? That becomes a risk. Female? You might have a higher chance of survival as a lender.
  3. The Chinese have gender lens investment down to an art: But funnily enough, “gender lens investment” is not a concept in China. Why? The Chinese are highly pragmatic and see business as business. If women-led businesses are less risky, if women-targeted industries are more lucrative, then money will naturally flow to these. It is already understood that, for instance, new mothers are some of the biggest spenders, and that women tend to spend heavily on education, for instance. That’s why edtech is hot in China. They just get it.
  4. The Indonesian market may be early, which means now is the time: Gender lens investment is a relatively new concept in many countries, Indonesia being no exception. While others are not looking, it is the perfect time now to jump in and start investing in industries and startups previously unconsidered or overlooked.

Both ANGIN and Teja Ventures would like to thank every single person for coming to our event. We are excited to host more events like these for our network, to start dialogues, and to encourage further mingling and connections to be made. Stay tuned for our next event!

About Teja Ventures:

Teja Ventures is the first venture capital fund committed to investing with a gender lens across Asia. It will focus on investing in companies in China and South East Asia, leveraging on synergies between the two geographies. In addition to objective investment criteria, the gender lens it employs targets businesses which are either women-led, focus on women consumer-led markets, or which create positive impact on women in the wider ecosystem. The fund will focus on investment opportunities in the financial inclusion / fintech, consumption, edtech and content economy verticals.

[RECAP] UNLEASH Innovation Lab 2018

UNLEASH Innovation lab is a global non-profit initiative that brings together 1000+ passionate young talents, experts and facilitators from all around the world to collaborate on ideas and solutions for the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). UNLEASH was first held in August in Denmark in 2017. This year the UNLEASH Innovation Lab was held in Singapore from May 30, 2018 to June 6, 2018. It featured 1000 carefully selected talents from 100+ countries and diverse backgrounds, who participated in 8 days of intense ideation to unlock the power of collaboration and human innovation to provide solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges. I was fortunate enough to be selected from a pool of more than 7,000 applicants to attend and participate in the UNLEASH Innovation Lab in Singapore this year.

Inspiring and thought-provoking speeches from experts and leaders such as President of Singapore Halimah Yacob, former President of Timor Leste, Jose Ramos-Horta, Academy Award winning actor Forest Whitaker and the social humanoid robot, Sophia, were some of the highlights of this year’s event.

This year, UNLEASH focused on 8 SDGs: Zero Hunger, Good Health and Well Being, Quality Education, Clean Water and Sanitation, Affordable and Clean Energy, Responsible Supply Chain and Production, Sustainable Cities and Communities, and Climate Action. The participants, called Unleash talents, were divided among these 8 categories. In a team consisting of amazing 6 individuals, I worked on SDG 12, Responsible Supply Chain and Production, and developed a solution to tackle the problem of food waste by supermarkets at the consumer level. My team created ‘Second Life Shelves’, an offline and online platform that enables supermarkets to connect with consumers to sell the food that is approaching the specified date (use by, sell by or best before) using a dynamic pricing algorithm.

During the eight-days program, the teams followed a structured innovation process facilitated by content and business experts to co-create innovative ideas and solutions for the designated SDGs. UNLEASH’s innovation process consists of five steps: problem framing, ideation, prototyping, testing and implementation. The teams were carefully formulated to ensure diversity in terms of experience and strengths. Many people might argue that innovation and ideation cannot be structured via pre-determined activities and steps, however, UNLEASH believes that with the help of a structured set of activities and design thinking, teams can co-create and innovate to develop viable solutions for a variety of problems.

Although my team did not win awards for the solution that we developed, I brought home invaluable experiences and gained immense knowledge about how innovation and collaboration can be used for creating an impact and changing the world. I am so glad to have participated in UNLEASH 2018, and to have met so many amazing, inspiring and like-minded individuals that I, now, can call my “UNLEASH Family”.

 

UNLEASH is a global non-profit initiative that is supported by various global actors, including UNDP, Deloitte, Carlsberg Foundation, and Dalberg. UNLEASH will be hosting the innovation lab every year until 2030 with an aim to tackle the SDGs. It’s exciting to see UNLEASH creating a wave of change around the world and inspiring thousands every year to create a better and more sustainable world.

Find out more at www.unleash.org

If you would like to know more about my experience at UNLEASH, shoot me an email at riaz@angin.id

Welcoming Four Summer Analysts to ANGIN!

The ANGIN team is growing and growing; just in time for the summer, we’re welcoming four superstar summer analysts to the team. Hailing from Georgetown University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Chicago, and University of California, Berkeley, they bring a wide array of experiences and knowledge to the table. We asked them a few quick questions so you can get to know them better:

1. Why do you want to work for ANGIN?

Karissa: As someone who discovered her love for tech and startups during college, I really wanted an experience which would allow me to familiarize and engage with the fast-growing Indonesian startup ecosystem. I also wanted to work at a company where I am able to make a lasting impact on the company, and try out many different roles. ANGIN definitely ticked all of these boxes!

Jason: Because I’ve lived in the Bay Area for the past 10 years, I have always had a strong interest in technology and startups. I wanted to spend summer getting direct exposure to both, which is why I am happy to be working for ANGIN! ANGIN allows me to not only learn more about Indonesia’s startup ecosystem, it allowed me to play a direct role in fostering its growth.

Kenan: I’ve always been inspired by entrepreneurs tackling large societal issues and thought it would be a rewarding experience to help support startups in a developing ecosystem such as Indonesia, where there is more of an opportunity to have significant impact. In addition I’ve never been to Southeast Asia and wanted to experience it as both a professional and a traveler!

Anant: As someone who is interested in social enterprise and the facilitation of ecosystem development, working at ANGIN places me in the center of activity around the space—I not only get to work with investors and startups, but other organizations that are trying to make the space more accessible and easier to work in.

2. What are your aspirations and goals?

Karissa: In the long term, I hope to come back to Indonesia and leverage innovation and technology to help solve the country’s pressing social issues!

Jason: While technology has been a recently found passion of mine, protecting the Earth has always been one of my priorities. I cannot picture myself doing anything else in the long term other than starting my own technology-sustainability startup designed make a better impact on the world.

Kenan: I hope to be an entrepreneur and go through the process of developing a company from the ground up myself. Later in my life, I would love to be an angel investor as well as be involved with the US government (particularly in international relations and fiscal policy).

Anant: I want to create a community in the countries that are a part of my experience (India and Indonesia, namely), where all people interested in making an impact in their communities can access the resources, support, and like-minded people that best help them succeed.

I also think I want to open a coffee shop or some sort of space. I want too many things, to be honest.

3. What are you most excited to work on this summer?

Karissa: Connector.ID! As a summer analyst, it’s exciting to have so much input in the direction of the platform from its early stages — from refining the algorithm and brainstorming potential new features, to working with the developers to actually make this a reality, I love watching the platform grow and playing an integral role in the Connector team.

Jason: I’m most excited about working on Connector.ID and helping promising entrepreneurs get the assistance they deserve. Seeing my contributions and ideas being implemented in such an important project is very rewarding and reminds me that in a startup, everyone can make a difference. 

Kenan: I’m most excited to support some of ANGIN’s existing portfolio companies with their needs at pivotal points in their development. I’m also excited to meet new entrepreneurs who are just beginning their startup journey and provide them with the advice and resources to grow.

Anant: I’m excited to work in understanding the relationship between impact and business, and shaping something out of that intersection. ANGIN’s impact-based approach is exciting, and I’d love to create something important there.

4. What’s your favorite Indonesian food?

Karissa: There’s so much to choose from, but as of now I’d say it’s Gudeg. I crave it every week when I’m in the US.

Jason: There’s no question about it –– martabak manis is my favorite Indonesian food and is something I can’t live without.

Kenan: I’ve only been here a few days thus far and have yet to try Indonesian cuisine so none… yet 🙂

Anant: I would go for Nasi Campur—it just has all the flavors and food groups you need, and I have some great memories associated.

Although, you can never go wrong with Nasi Padang.

Or Indomie.

[NEWS] ANGIN Featured In Diinsider Change Mag!

David Soukhasing has the pleasure to share ANGIN’s work with Gladys from Diinsider Change Mag. Through this interview, we discuss angel investment, our impact, challenges as still an early organization and our vision forward. Thanks Gladys for allocating time to our impact.

You will find the interview here.

CHANGE works to promote grassroots innovations that have the potential to inspire many organizations and young changemakers who have been directly involved in work at the grassroots level, and empower them to take effective actions with sustainable and scalable models. Their founding team combines intensive grassroots experiences with cross-sector skills and global perspective. They are all social entrepreneurs dedicated to creating changes in the grassroots level, however when they started, they could not see a single platform that can empower our work with both inspirations and in-depth analysis. So they created one.

In this issue, they also bring you a collection of cases in the agricultural sector. They hope to open your innovative minds to co-create and co-innovate our agriculture industry and empower farmers, their families and the whole economy.

Featuring as well:
Nelaya Eco Farm | Youth Co:Lab
Digital Green
Aryana Agricultural Alternatives
Doko Recyclers

[RECAP] ANGIN goes to AVPN Conference 2018

ANGIN is proud to have both attended and participated in the AVPN 2018 Conference in Singapore. Valencia Dea, Principal of ANGIN, shared her insights during the panel, Financing the Missing Middle in Southeast Asia alongside several other policy experts. Riaz Bhardwaj, Senior Consultant at ANGIN, was invited as a keynote speaker to share the findings from ANGIN’s recent research project about Start-up Assistance Organizations in Indonesia and their role in gender-inclusion during a Gender Lens Investment breakfast gathering hosted by Sasakawa Peace Foundation. The conference had a heavy focus on gender lens investment and women’s empowerment – a refreshing take on investment, especially as ANGIN expands its women’s empowerment  programs.

In addition, the team was able to attend meaningful workshops such as Big Data for Social Impact and Investing in Digital Inclusion and Last Mile Connectivity in Asia, hosted by the likes of USAID, Google, Microsoft, VillageCapital, and Mastercard. The Deal Share Platform speed-dating sessions were also eye-opening and informative as some of the best social innovations and entrepreneurs were given the chance to present their products and solutions. ANGIN is grateful to once again have the opportunity to attend the AVPN conference as a member and participate actively as speakers and attendees while reconnecting with old faces and meeting new ones. We look forward to more AVPN activities in the future and see the impact investment space of Asia to be extremely promising.

 

 

[REPORT] ANGIN Team Member to Participate in UNLEASH 2018

We are excited to announce that one of our team members, Riaz Bhardwaj, is invited to be a participant in UNLEASH 2018! ANGIN will continue its commitment to support positive social impact related to the Sustainable Development Goals.

About UNLEASH

UNLEASH is a global innovation lab that brings together people from all over the world to transform 1,000 personal insights into hundreds of ideas, and build lasting global networks around the Sustainable Development Goals.

Every year, UNLEASH chooses different themes that are related to the SDGs for the talents to work on. They will also be provided guidelines for impact.

The themes this year is SDG 2: No Hunger, SDG 3: Good Health and Well-Being, SDG 4: Quality Education, SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation, SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy, SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities, SDG 12: Responsible Supply Chain and Consumption, and SDG 13: Climate Action.

You can find out more about UNLEASH here.