Indonesia’s richest family funds local fintech startup

The Cermati team / Photo credit: Cermati

Cermati, an Indonesian fintech firm that helps customers research and sign up for credit cards, insurance, and loans, announced that it raised a series B round from Djarum Group, a cigarette manufacturer owned by the Hartono family. The size of the deal wasn’t disclosed.

With a net worth of US$32.3 billion, brothers Budi and Michael Hartono are the richest people in Indonesia, according to Forbes.

Launched in 2015, Cermati has more than five million monthly visits. Beyond providing consumers with financial information, it also helps financial services improve user acquisition, onboarding, risk assessment and servicing through software.

As part of this deal, East Ventures, Beenos Plaza, and Finch Capital have exited their earlier investments in Cermati. Finch says it has made a return on capital of 2.7x. Since East Ventures and Beenos invested in Cermati when it was younger, their returns are likely even greater. East Ventures declined to reveal its returns when asked.

DealStreetAsia earlier reported that Alibaba was interested in acquiring Cermati, which caused the startup to cease fundraising talks for the series B round. Now that Cermati has gone ahead to raise the round, it appears that the acquisition deal did not materialize.

Cermati did not confirm nor deny this. “We did talk to multiple investors and we decided to go with Djarum,” a spokesperson said.

Indonesia’s richest families have an outsized influence in the country’s businesses, and startups are no exception. The Hartonos are some of the pioneering investors in Indonesian startups.

Budi’s son Martin set up Global Digital Prima (GDP) Venture under Djarum in 2010. GDP has invested in Kaskus, a major online forum in the country, as well as BliBli, a major ecommerce site with over 30 million monthly visits, according to SimilarWeb.