Indonesia’s humor site MalesBanget gets investment from Rebright Partners and 500 Startups

MBDC Media, a Jakarta-based online media company founded and run by Indonesian celebrity Christian Sugiono as CEO, announced today it has raised new funding of an undisclosed amount led by Rebright Partners, and followed by 500 Startups. This is the second round of funding since MBDC’s seed investment in 2011 from Nusantara Capital Incubator.

Sugiono established MBDC Media in January 2011. It’s best known for the humor site Malesbanget, which has become one of Indonesia’s most popular viral content sites in terms of traffic. Together with other MBDC Media’s products lika KamusSlang, the company gets 470,000 monthly unique visitors and 3.5 million pageviews every month. The team notes that on average, one user would spend seven minutes in their websites.

MBDC Media claims its YouTube channel is one of the most subscribed-to channels in Indonesia, producing original content from comedy sketches, webseries, tutorials, music, and travel videos. It currently has more than 250,000 subscribers, and more than 800,000 monthly views.

MBDC says the investment rationale was built on growth in Indonesian online video audiences. While most online media companies monetize via banner advertising, MBDC says it promotes big consumer brands including Telkomsel, Aqua, Samsung, and Microsoft by engaging audiences with branded video content, articles, and custom native advertising techniques.

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“Users’ demand for online content is boundless […]. That trend is rapidly rising all around the world nowadays, and Indonesia is not an exception,” says Takeshi Ebihara, general partner of Rebright Partners in today’s announcement.

“Rebright Partners and 500 Startups joining us is important momentum for our company,” adds Sugiono.

The investment will be used for team development, growing both content production capacity and the company’s technical team. A more developed infrastructure will also help Malesbanget and the media startup as a whole cater to a broader audience and more diverse advertisers.

In addition to the funding, MBDC Media also announced today its new product called Red Network, a new YouTube multi-channel network and talent management platform. The aim of Red Network is to support and manage content creators via promotion, production, publishing and monetization. Members can be top Indonesian influencers or video creators from various genres.

Khailee Ng, venture partner of 500 Startups, based in Malaysia, says, “Indonesia represents one of the largest consumer markets in the world, and MBDC is giving global investors like us a front-row seat.”