Jakarta. The equity and mutual fund investment fintech, Ajaib, has become the seventh unicorn in Indonesia, and the first investment fintech unicorn in Southeast Asia, after raising $153 million from a Series B funding round on Monday.
Ajaib got the unicorn status, achieved when a startup valuation exceeded $1 billion in just two and a half years, making Ajaib the fastest startup to seal the achievement in Southeast Asian history. So far, the startup has raised $243 million in 2021.
The Series B funding was led by DST Global and previous investors, namely Alpha JWC, Ribbit Capital, Horizons Ventures, Insignia Ventures, and SoftBank Ventures Asia. DST Global and Ribbit Capital are also significant investors in Robinhood.
Indonesia has six startups that have a valuation of over $1 billion, namely GoTo, Bukalapak, Traveloka, OVO, J&T Express, and Xendit.
Ajaib Group Co-Founder & CEO Anderson Sumarli said the successful fundraising reflected the potential of retail investors in the world's fourth most populous country. The company planned to use the proceed from the latest fundraising round for recruiting talent and launching educational campaigns to inspire more novice investors.
"Our "mission is to welcome a new generation of investors to modern financial services. Indonesia still has a penetration of stock investors of 1 percent. And we still have a long way to go to support government programs to increase financial inclusion and literacy in Indonesia," Anderson said in a statement on Monday.
The company's mission was in line with h the government's aims to increase financial inclusion and literacy and strengthen the Indonesian capital market, especially among the younger generation. Last year, the Financial Services Authority (OJK) survey showed that the level of financial literacy in the capital market is still relatively low at 4.9 percent and the inclusion rate is only 1.6 percent.
Ajaib now has more than 1 million stock retail investors on its platform. In comparison, Indonesia has more than 5 million individual investors in the capital market investors, according to data from OJK.