Indonesian online investment platform FUNDtastic announced that it has secured $7.7 million in a Series A funding round led by Singaporean private equity firm Ascend Capital Group. The round was also participated in by Indonesia technology investment holdings company Indivara Group. “The new fund aims to expand our market scope, and also develop more products and features,” said FUNDtastic CEO and Co-Founder Harry Hartono.
The online investment platform was founded in 2019 by Hartono, Franky Chandra, and Medwin Susilo. The platform currently provides a variety of products including mutual funds, government securities, and gold investment options. In the future, the startup plans to expand its product offering with retail bonds, insurance, and P2P lending.
Ascend Capital Partner Muljadi Tjandra highlighted the platforms’ potential for financial inclusion: “FUNDtastic can reach the underbanked and unbanked population to actively become investors. This progressive step can expand the new investors in doing a simple investment.”
The Series A fund came in shortly after FUNDtastic acquired Financial Services Authority (OJK)-licensed mutual fund selling agent Invisee (now known as FUNDtastic+) for $6.5 million to expand its products. Since then, the fintech FinTech startup has been able to increase its users and the total amount of funds that the company is managing. FUNDtastic claims that its user base has grown by five times since 2020 with 110,000 registered users on its platform. The company reported that it now has around $14.2 million in assets under management.
FUNDtastic attributed its growth to the digital migration brought upon by the safety measures and restrictions respective countries have imposed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Aside from the mass migration to digital platforms, the pandemic has also highlighted how important financial investments are. In November 2020, capital market investors went up to 3.53 million. 57.5 percent of the total investors were from mutual funds and bond investors, according to the Indonesian Stock Exchange (IDX).
“Despite the pandemic having hit the Indonesian economy, awareness on investment and emergency funds was getting higher,” said Hartono.
The Series A fund will be used to develop more product offerings and expand the company’s market scope. FUNDtastic has had plans of expanding its product offering to include retail bond and insurance options, and P2P lending products. The fund will also be used to develop a “product that is easily accessible, even for beginner investors.”