Indonesia's Pintarnya raises $14.3m seed round
Indonesia’s Pintarnya, a one-stop platform for blue collar workers, has closed a USD 14.3m seed round backed by General Catalyst, Sequoia Capital India, and East Ventures.
It includes a USD 6.3m provided by General Catalyst, Sequoia, and various angel investors in May, plus a USD 8m tranche this week from East and Temasek Holdings’ Vertex Ventures.
Pintarnya describes its mission as helping Indonesia’s rising working class get employed, become more employable, and access better financial services. Since launching in May, it has connected more than 6,000 employers with some 100,000 job seekers across food services, retail, logistics, and hospitality.
The platform is said to weigh up various parameters including job requirements, location, and candidates’ skillsets, making the recruitment process more effective. There are also services around CV creation for individuals and facilitating psychological tests for employers.
The seed capital will be used to grow the ecosystem of companies and workers across different cities, while investing in technology and data-enabled processes for making the service more efficient. The company will also add new engineers, product managers, designers, operations professionals, and salespeople.
"There is a huge opportunity in empowering millions of the region’s blue collar workers in their quest to get better employment and livelihood. The opportunity comes with a lot of difficult pain points along the user journey, but we believe Pintarnya is the right team that can crack this problem,” Willson Cuaca, a managing partner at East, said in a statement.
“They have the proven experience of building and scaling B2C marketplace and financial service products in Indonesia. They are making fast progress.”
Similar operators in this space include Jakarta-based Sampingan, which claims to have connected more than 1m blue collar workers with around 150 companies across 80 cities. It received USD 5m last year from Access Ventures, Altara Ventures, Antler, and Golden Gate Ventures, among others.
Investment around the region includes India’s BetterPlace, which raised a USD 24m Series C round last year led by CX Partners and Jungle Ventures. It is used by about 700 companies and attracts 1.4m blue collar job seekers a year.
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