5 startups to watch: they just got accepted into Indonesia’s Ideabox accelerator

Five local startups have made the cut to participate in the third round of Indonesia’s Ideabox accelerator. The four-month program to support startups in growth stage is a partnership between Indosat, one of Indonesia’s three major mobile carriers, and Mountain Kejora Ventures, a Jakarta-based VC fund with roots in Switzerland.

Startups had to work hard to earn these spots. Following a long selection process that spanned eight cities, 25 finalists participated in the two-day Ideabox Bootcamp. That bootcamp just ended on Sunday.

Starting in November, the five startups will going through a training program that will bring them up to speed in marketing, business model optimization, product development, and company building. At the end of the term, startups pitch investors for an opportunity to raise funding.

Here’s a closer look at the winners.

Sociabuzz

Sociabuzz is a platform that makes it possible for advertisers to tap into the power of “buzzers” – people with popular social media accounts and a high number followers – in order to promote their services or products on social media.

With a minimum start credit of IDR 50,000 (US$3.70) you can create an ad, choose a buzzer, determine a posting schedule, and receive a report about the campaign on your dashboard. Sociabuzz has been around since 2012. In April this year, it raised US$62,500 in seed funding. The influencer marketing site claims to already serve big clients such as Honda, Toyota, and Bank Central Asia (BCA).

Lakuin

Lakuin, which roughly translates as “do it,” helps mini-kiosks that sell electronic phone credits widen their product inventory at little or no additional cost. These kiosks are typically found on the side of the street everywhere in Indonesia.

Lakuin equips these kiosks with its Lakupad tablets, which contain e-commerce applications. Kiosk owners can choose online products and sell them to their customers, who pay in cash. This “selling-agent” concept puts Lakuin in a league with startups like Kudo and Wobe. The latter participated in Ideabox’s previous batch.

See: How a new breed of startups is cracking rural ecommerce in Asia

Ripple

Dheket

Karental

Fintech dominates