Public services app rolls out in 13 Indonesian cities with fresh funds

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Jakarta’s citizen services app Qlue yesterday announced it has closed a series A round of unspecified amount. The funding comes from Prasetia Dwidharma, a cell tower construction company led by Budi Setiadharma, who is also active as an angel investor in Indonesia’s tech scene.

“We can’t say exactly how much we raised, but it was more than US$1 million,” Qlue founder and CEO Rama Raditya told Tech in Asia. “The investment raises our valuation to about US$8 million.”

Qlue lets citizens file complaints – for example about illegal trash dumps – which then get directed to the responsible government institution. Qlue has been part of the Jakarta government’s smart city initiative since 2014, in the form of public-private partnership. Its adoption as a tool to be used within the city administration was spearheaded by governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama.

Over time, Qlue grew into more than a complaints system. The app is a gateway for citizens to access real-time information on traffic and transportation, healthcare, safety, education, and entertainment. In its most basic form, this can be as simple as getting directions to the nearest hospital, police station, or sightseeing spot, but Qlue is designed as a platform, so it can add new or even third party services as it grows.

See: Ahead of Ramadan traffic chaos, Jakarta’s smart city app adds new transportation features

Next up: 12 new cities

The website smartcities.id serves as portal to all the smart city apps available so far.

With the fresh funding, Rama plans to fuel the startup’s growth in new cities within Indonesia.

Next to Jakarta, smart city apps based on Qlue are now available in Bandung, Bali, Bekasi, Bogor, Depok, Makassar, Manado, Palembang, Riau, Semarang, Surabaya, and Yogyakarta. Residents of any of those cities can find their app on Google Play by searching for their city’s name, along with the term “smart city.”

The startup has moved into a bigger office and is hiring new engineers, data scientists, and teams for government relations and marketing.

For its Indonesian expansion, Qlue is working together with all five large Indonesian telcos – Telkomsel, XL Axiata, Indosat Ooredoo, 3, and Smartfren. According to Qlue, the telcos will help promote its apps and make it possible for people to use them via SMS and MMS.

Qlue also has ambitions to expand internationally, specifically into Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand. “There’s a plan from these three countries to use the Qlue app,” Rama said.

Rama explained that the series A investment was made because the investors are pleased with Qlue’s traction. The company has 500,000 users at the moment. “According to [our investors] Indonesians really like to complain,” Rama said.