HaloMoney plans to win Indonesia with narrow focus and deep pockets

Simon Costello – Co-Founder & Managing Director & Aninditta Savitry – General Manager Banking.

Simon Costello’s resume reads like a someone made it up to demonstrate what a venture capitalist might look for in the biography of a promising entrepreneur-to-be: several years as a financial consultant in London under his belt – check. Built and exited not only one, but two startups – check.

Now Costello is based in Indonesia, as co-founder and managing director of financial comparison site HaloMoney. A strange choice after being successful in one of the financial centers of the world? Maybe. But relocating to Jakarta was a coming home of sorts for Costello. He’s originally from Melbourne and lived in Indonesia’s sprawling capital at some point in the late nineties as an exchange student to study the language.

When he learned that friends at Nova Founders Capital – a company builder and investor similar in concept to Rocket Internet – had plans to enter Asia with a network of financial comparison sites, he saw the chance to join something big and meaningful and got on board.

Rapid expansion across Southeast Asia

The group formed under the name CompareAsia, with headquarters in Hong Kong. Within the span of one and a half years, it spread to Taiwan and across Southeast Asia, entering each country with a localized version of the brand. Costello’s previous experience as an exchange student landed him the role to spearhead the group’s venture in Indonesia. Here, the brand is called HaloMoney and has been operational for about a year.

“What attracted me was the opportunity to work with an experienced team,” Costello says.

The group of of entrepreneurs who make up the management of the CompareAsia Group all have a pedigree similar to Costello’s. They have done their stints at major consulting firms, at Rocket Internet and other startups, or at insurance companies. They are the kind of people other people trust to handle money. CompareAsia Group has a lot of it: in April, it announced raising funds to the tune of US$40 million, in a series A round led by Goldman Sachs.

Ten times as much capital

This means CompareAsia Group’s heavy war chest contains roughly ten times as much as that of one of its closest competitors. Malaysia’s iMoney, which operates in Indonesia under the name Aturduit, raised a US$4 million series B round in 2014. Indonesia’s Compare88 Group, which also operates in the Philippines, is backed by Mountain SEA Ventures and Monk’s Hill Ventures, but the amount it raised was not disclosed. It’s not likely to be in the same league as CompareAsia’s funding.

With a funding of that size, it seems CompareAsia is ready to fight a long battle in order to establish itself in the crowded market of financial comparison sites in Indonesia. It has to fight, because so far, it limps behind in key metrics.

According to Similarweb data, the HaloMoney site in Indonesia received only 15,000 visitors in May, compared to 240,000 visitors for competitors Aturduit and 120,000 for Cekaja in the same period.