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Shadine Taufik · · 4 min readSerial entrepreneur opens up about failed fintech firm
“People often ask me, ‘Would you do it again?’, and the answer will always be yes,” serial entrepreneur Muhammad Aditriya Indraputra tells Tech in Asia, reminiscing on his first experience building a startup.
AgenKan co-founder Muhammad Aditriya Indraputra / Photo credit: Muhammad Aditiriya Indraputra
Indraputra, co-founder and CEO of Indonesia-based childcare firm PrimaKu, began his entrepreneurial journey with AgenKan, a fintech startup focused on secured lending.
AgenKan lasted just over a year and a half before being forced to close due to the pandemic. But it wasn’t in vain – Indraputra recalls learning plenty from the experience, which he calls “life-changing.”
“Regardless of the outcome, personally, I have grown to a level I never imagined before,” he says.
Combining fintech lending and pawn services
Indraputra began his career in the banking and private equity (PE) sectors. It was during his work as an investment professional in PE that he became acquainted with the world of startups, particularly in the consumer, fintech, and healthcare industries.
He helped the company he was working for analyze risks before making any investments. He also assisted the company in developing businesses, solving problems, and overcoming challenges in its ventures, which inspired his entrepreneurial spirit.
In 2019, Indraputra quit his job to establish AgenKan, which he built with a co-founder who had also resigned from his role as a consultant. The fintech firm’s business model combines peer-to-peer (P2P) lending with pawn services.
Image credit: Timmy Loen
AgenKan facilitated the allocation of idle funds from lenders to borrowers through agents located in mom and pop shops across Indonesia. Before obtaining a loan, borrowers needed to pledge their goods or assets as collateral.
Indraputra shares that AgenKan’s business was going well in its first few months, having obtained a fintech lending license from the Indonesia Financial Services Authority (OJK). It had 30 employees, which included agents spread across 10 cities.
The company also received early-stage funding from investors including Beenext and participated in accelerator programs such as Synrgy and Startup Studio Indonesia.
Not enough time to pivot
Things took a turn for the worse when the Covid-19 pandemic hit Indonesia in 2020.
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Muhammad Aditiriya Indraputra recalls how the pandemic-induced closure of lending startup AgenKan pushed him to grow.
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