Indonesia’s Upturn parts ways with founder, shifts to venture builder model

Upturn, the Indonesia-based strategic management services firm formerly known as Tunnelerate, has confirmed the departure of Ivan Arie Sustiawan, its co-founder and managing partner.

Sustiawan stepped down in June – just a month after the start of Upturn’s first accelerator program in May. In a conversation with Tech in Asia, Upturn said that he left “on good terms” to “pursue personal endeavors.”

He also had a stint at Tanihub, serving as CEO and co-founder of the Jakarta-based agritech firm from August 2016 to March 2021. Following his exit from Tanihub, Sustiawan went into angel investing and advised a few startups, including agritech firms JaringPangan and Eratani.

It was his link to Eratani that led Sustiawan to Upturn. At the agritech startup, Sustiawan shared a cap table with fellow angel investors Riswanto and Bharat Ongso. All three of them would later become co-founders of Upturn, together with a fourth founding partner, Ayunda Afifa.

However, Sustiawan’s involvement with Eratani and Upturn was ultimately short-lived. A few months before departing Upturn, he quit his external advisor role at Eratani and divested his shares in the company. Riswanto and Ongso, meanwhile, remain at the company.

Since leaving Upturn, Sustiawan has started a consulting firm called Nusantara Ventures, which is in the early stages of setting up a Singapore-registered investment fund.

Upturn, meanwhile, has temporarily handed the managing partner role to Afifa, but says it is looking to hire a new executive to replace Sustiawan.

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“Baby-stage” support

When it entered the market in early 2022 as Tunnelerate, Upturn primarily positioned itself as the operator of Upturn Scale, its flagship accelerator program. Its first batch, which ended in July, produced 14 graduates including Flash Campus, Cari Mobil, Bintang Kecil, and Belajar Lagi.

While Upturn saw great interest in the program and considers it a success, it’s now veering towards a different model that can better leverage its founders’ expertise while also making its business more sustainable.

According to Upturn partner Riswanto, the plan is to operate an entrepreneur-in-residence program, which will see the firm us a model similar to that of a venture builder. This means going in at the “baby stage” of a startup’s journey, providing them with capital, day-to-day operational support, and access to Upturn founders’ know-how and network to help entrepreneurs scale their business faster.

This is something Riswanto believes that he and fellow co-founder Ongso have proven successful through their support of Eratani, which recently raised a pre-seed round, and can be replicated to help other young startups.

“We will support these startups from very early and be there for the long run. We will leverage our ecosystem to give them better support,” Riswanto says.

VC Fund in the works