A peek inside a fast-growing Indonesian fintech startup

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Hello readers,

We all know this: Most startup pitches fail. But that didn’t stop the CEO of fintech firm Payfazz. Hendra Kwik pitched and failed a total of 25 times before finally getting seed funding for this company from Y Combinator — the first Indonesian startup to do so.

Now, the CEO has a bigger dream: He wants Payfazz to become the “Google Play of financial services” for Indonesia. With the company already on track to process US$2.2 billion in transactions this year, could that become a reality? You can read the full article here or scroll down for a quick read.

Your quick bytes for today:

1️⃣ Reliance to sell its stake to Amazon?

The Indian conglomerate is reported to be offering 40% of its stake in Reliance Retail to the ecommerce giant for US$20 billion. The news comes shortly after the retail unit announced it would receive US$1 billion in funding from US-based investment firm Silver Lake.

2️⃣ Launcho Ventures launches a venture studio

The Singapore-based VC offers a program for first-time entrepreneurs to create startups in-house through internal ideation as well as co-create with other founders in the region. Founders would receive a S$3,500 monthly salary and get free office spaces in Singapore.

3️⃣ TikTok gets more time to sell?

ByteDance, the owner of the short-video app, is likely to miss the September 15 deadline for selling TikTok’s US operations. With China’s new tech exports’ regulations complicating the sale, the Trump administration is reported to be considering whether or not to give ByteDance more time to strike a deal.

4️⃣ Huawei to launch a Google Android rival

The Chinese phone company will have its very own operating system next year. Named HarmonyOS, it is expected to be a replacement for the Android operating system after Huawei got barred from using Google’s technology, essentially cutting off users from downloading and using Android apps.

5️⃣ Zomato to go public by 2021

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