Indonesia’s VCs, incubators form alliance in response to laws that could harm startups

Eight of Indonesia’s venture capital firms and incubators, familiar names to the ecosystem, have formed the Alliance of Venture Capitals in Indonesia (AVCII) to educate the market about venture capital investments and tech entrepreneurship.

The eight organizations are:

• Cyber Agent Ventures
• East Ventures
• GEPI
• Grupara Inc
• Ideosource
• Jakarta Founders Institute
• Merah Putih Incubator
• Mountain Indonesia

The stated mission of the alliance is to “help each other in terms of knowledge, resources, facilities, data, and information sharing within the organization.” It also aims to ensure the growth of e-commerce and internet based companies in the nation.

AVCII will organize workshops to educate entrepreneurs about investments and growing scalable companies. They also hope to educate the market on the existence of VCs and incubators as a support network for startups.

The organization will be reaching out to universities to support their entrepreneurship curriculums and scout out startups or talents with potential. It will also partner with government and regulatory institutions to advocate a legal environment that favors startups.

“This organization was started because of the law that might be passed regarding foreign investments in Indonesia’s e-commerce,” noted a press release by the alliance.

“We know that the VC industry is too small to reason with government’s new policies or laws, but at least having an alliance is better than have nothing to represent with,” says Aryo Ariotedjo of incubator Grupara, who was appointed vice chairman of AVCII under a vote. Sebastian Togelang of Mountain Indonesia is the Chairman.

While it is named an alliance of VCs, the organization is open to incubators, accelerators, and angel investors, both local and foreign. The key criterion is that they support the local tech scene.

ACII will be based in Ciputra World, GEPI’s co-working space. Events will be held there and at Grupara’s headquarters.

Related reads:

Danger looming large in Indonesia’s new e-commerce law?
New laws to watch out for if you’re running a tech company in Southeast Asia

Image: Catriona Ward