Indonesia social commerce player Super raises $70m

Other investors include Insignia Ventures Partners, SoftBank Ventures Asia (SBVA), Amasia, B Capital Group, TNB Aura, partners of DST Global, and Gold House Ventures. Gold House is a non-profit formed to advance the interests of people of Asian and Pacific Islands origin. Its venture unit is deploying a USD 30m impact fund under the leadership Eric Feng, formerly of Kleiner Perkins.

There were additional individual contributions from Stephen Pagliuca, chairman of Bain Capital, and Moses Lo, CEO of Indonesian payments start-up Xendit.

Super has raised USD 106m to date, including a USD 28m Series B in May 2021 led by SBVA. Insignia, Y-Combinator Continuity Fund, Amasia, TNB Aura, partners of DST, and Pagliuca also participated. The company's Series A round, which closed in 2018, came from Insignia and Alpha JWC Ventures. It was followed by an investment of undisclosed size from a VC platform backed by rapper Jay-Z.

Super – known officially as Aplikasi Super – was established in 2016 as a project of Nusantara Technology, a group of Indonesian millennials focused on youth-oriented business models. Nusantara was accepted into Y Combinator's incubation program in 2018, claiming to be the first Indonesian consumer start-up to achieve this milestone.

The company's business model is best described as a hybrid of two companies that emerged in China: Pinduoduo, an e-commerce platform that used social networking to bring affordable goods to underserved lower-tier cities; and Nice Tuan, a community group buying platform that relies on individuals in different neighbourhoods to coordinate ordering and delivery.

Steven Wongsoredjo, CEO and co-founder of Super, noted in a statement that GDP per capita in Indonesia's tier-two and tier-three cities and its rural areas is 3-5 times lower than in Jakarta, yet the cost of consumer goods is 20-200% higher. Key expansion geographies in the coming years include Kalimantan, Bali, West Nusa Tenggara, East Nusa Tenggara, Maluku, and Papua.

Super leverages a hyperlocal logistics platform to deliver consumer goods to thousands of agents within 24 hours of orders being submitted. Its agents are typically individuals and family-owned microbusinesses known as warungs that aggregate and distribute goods within their local communities. The company now operates across 30 cities in East Java and South Sulawesi.

There is also a SuperAgent app that helps individuals establish online retail channels that leverage popular networks such as Facebook and Instagram. More recently, the company has launched two private-label brands.

The new capital will go towards the development of additional brands in the fast moving consumer goods space, the creation of a cosmetics products segment, and the introduction of a feature that enables agents to track end-consumer transactions and tailor customer experience accordingly.

Gisella Tjoanda, head of strategy and business development at Super, added that efforts will be made to expand the company's engineering team and improve the warehouse management system by implementing machine learning. "We understand the importance of data collection and analysis as one of the keys to success in launching new SKUs [stockkeeping units]," he said.

• Tweet  
• Facebook  
• LinkedIn  
• Google plus  
• Save this article  
• Send to  

• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Technology
• Consumer
• Expansion
• Indonesia
• e-commerce
• TMT
• Insignia Venture Partners
• SoftBank Ventures Asia
• B Capital
• New Enterprise Associates
• DST Advisors