East Ventures backs big data startup built by former Traveloka execs

Bonza, an Indonesian big data analysis startup that aims to bridge the gap between AI research and its real-life implementation, has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from East Ventures.

The company, founded just this year, will use the fresh funds to further develop its tech and product as well as expand its operations.

Bonza co-founders Philip Thomas (left) and Elsa Chandra / Photo credit: Bonza

Bonza was built by Philip Thomas and Elsa Chandra who were previously the data science lead and an investment senior executive, respectively, at Indonesian travel unicorn Traveloka. Their startup helps customers bring together sources of structured and unstructured data into a single source of truth. The data is then used to build and deploy AI and machine learning solutions for decisions at scale.

The startup aims to build a product that can be used by everyone in a company – from data analysts to C-suite executives – to make decisions, according to a statement.

In the meantime, Bonza is using its expertise to help fight the spread of Covid-19. It has introduced the Effective Reproduction Number (Rt) model to help the Indonesian government measure the growth rate of virus transmission across the archipelago.

Policymakers can use the model as a metric to create plans and measure the effectiveness of pandemic control measures such as large-scale social restrictions, according to a statement. The national government hopes to reopen the economy by June.

An Rt number that’s greater than one indicates that on average, every infectious person transmits the virus to more than one individual and that more Covid-19 cases may appear in their area. An Rt lower than one means that on average, every carrier transmits the virus to less than one person and infections may decrease until the transmission stops.

According to Bonza, Indonesia has an Rt of 1.43 as of May 24, the highest number compared to Singapore (1.22), Malaysia (1.22), the Philippines (0.79), Vietnam (0.33), and Thailand (0.32). As of this writing, Indonesia has recorded more than 22,700 confirmed cases of Covid-19, with over 1,300 deaths.