Amartha, a Jakarta-based fintech company that connects micro and SME business partners with investors, has received a $28 million investment from the Women’s World Banking fund (Women’s World Banking Capital Partners II) and MDI Ventures. The fundraising was also participated in by existing investors Mandiri Capital and UOB Venture Management.

The investment comes in shortly after the P2P lending platform secured $50 million in debt financing from Lendable in February this year.

The company plans to use the investment to continue empowering rural Indonesian women with proper working capital and further develop its products and offerings.

“Beyond lending, we have other services such as Amartha for Business Partners to encourage offline-to-online transactions, supporting end-to-end loan management from origination and disbursement to repayment,” said Andi Taufan Garuda Putra, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Amartha.

He added, “We also have Amartha Plus that empowers communities with group buying, where we connect them with e-commerce platforms so they can shop more conveniently and get more affordable prices. Moreover, we’ll launch Amartha Score, where we build our partners’ credit history digitally, making it easier for them to get other financial services.”

The Women’s World Banking Capital Partners II fund is the company’s second gender lens investment fund set up by the New York-based non-profit organization that provides strategic support, technical assistance, and information to a global network. The fund was set up to remedy the gender gap and invest in up-and-coming fintech companies that offer financial services for low-income women. Moving forward, the company will be working with the Women’s World Bank in future projects that aim to help underserved rural communities.

Andi expounds on the startup’s growth during the pandemic: “We are grateful that Amartha can continue to grow amid the pandemic. There are about 30 million to 40 million micro-entrepreneurs in Indonesia, and we hope to tap into least 20% of them, serving up to 10 million borrowers from this segment in the next five to 10 years.”

Since its founding in 2010, the company now finds itself operating in over 18,600 villages across Java, Sumatra, and Sulawesi. Amartha plans to expand into the eastern provinces of Indonesia. The company also claims that it has helped more than 600,000 women entrepreneurs with proper access to financial services.

“We started very humbly in 2010. Initially, we provided only a loan of 500,000 rupiah (US$35) per year, which was enough to fill the inventory of one small shop and help revive the economic activities of the surrounding community. Many of our first borrowers are still partnering with Amartha today. Our value proposition is a community-based network that helps them grow and look after each other, as one small loan can make huge differences in a rural community,” Andi said.

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