This venture capital firm is trying something different: supporting the public sector

Photo credit: Leeta Luminate

East Ventures, one of the most active VC firms in Southeast Asia with a portfolio of more than 100 mostly seed-stage startups, is branching out.

Today the firm announced the formation of what it calls its Creating Shared Value (CSV) unit. In essence, East Ventures hired a person who will be fully committed to working on civic tech projects together with the government or civil society groups.

That person is Pandu Putra, a civic tech specialist who has been involved in several activities like Code for Bandung and Code4Nation. These are hackathon-like events in which the software developer community comes up with ideas to improve government efficiency and public service delivery with software.

Pandu’s role will be to continue driving this type of exchange and maximize its outcome. He will seek out the best projects that can translate to long-term strategic partnerships – and he’ll make sure they actually happen.

Pandu Putra, East Venture’s new associate of civic projects.

“With the potential interference from bureaucracy, complex coordination, and typical miscommunications between these parties, my biggest responsibility in all of this is to make sure things work well between stakeholders,” Pandu explains.

“I’m also hoping I can help connect potential resources from both parties so that even more tech innovation can find [its] way into the public development scene,” he adds.

If that sounds abstract, it’s because the “CSV unit” at this stage is just an idea, a long-term commitment to make smarter connections between public interests and the technical know-how and entrepreneurial experience found in the startup world.

It’s in line with East Ventures’ mission. “Other than investing in good entrepreneurs, we always have and want to be the front runner in ecosystems building. We’ve been doing that since 2010 through funding, pitching events, incubation programs, the co-working space, weekly talks and so on,” says Willson Cuaca, co-founder and managing partner of East Ventures. “Engaging with civic projects is the next step.”

There’s no immediate plan to link up East Ventures’ portfolio companies with civic projects, nor is the firm considering to set up an additional fund for civic tech companies at this stage.

Willson sees the synergy as something more indirect somewhere down the line.

“If [civic tech projects] can make the country more efficient, […] we will be able to do things at 10 times the speed in the near future,” Willson hopes. “With some tweaks, we think the startup mindset will benefit the public sector.”