Indonesian crypto exchange Reku raises $11m
Indonesia’s AC Ventures has led a USD 11m Series A round for Reku, a local crypto exchange that claims to offer the lowest fees in the market.
Jakarta-based Skystar Capital and sector specialist Coinbase Ventures of the US also participated. It is the five-year-old company’s first institutional capital raising.
Reku claims to have generated USD 3bn in gross transaction value in 2021 via a fully in-house built trading platform that limits its services to tokens with sufficient liquidity to provide “an extra layer of safety to users.” Transparency and compliance with conventional share trading regulations are prioritised with a view to improving usability, credibility, and access.
“It’s no secret that crypto has been surging in Indonesia in recent years. Despite multiple macroeconomic pullbacks such as the pandemic and the 2022 recession, local demand remains resilient,” CEO Sumardi Fung said in a statement.
“That said, there are still many problems faced by the country’s crypto users. Even today, crypto is a complicated asset class to understand. To get into it, Indonesians must have sufficient guidance and trust in the platforms they use on a foundational level.”
Fung founded the company alongside Robby, the chief compliance officer, who uses one name. Both were professionals in the futures trading industry from 2005 to 2017 and claim intimate pre-existing professional relationships within Indonesia’s Commodities and Futures Trading Regulatory Agency.
The COO is Jesse Choi, a former consultant at Bain & Company and former private equity investor at Bain Capital. Choi has also filled roles at AC Ventures, as well at US-based early-stage investors Playground Global and 21 Fund.
More than 10trn transactions have been facilitated to date for about 500,000 users. The new capital will be used to add more than 50 team members to a current headcount of 80 and roll out new products.
AC Ventures, the product of the merging of Indonesia’s Agaeti Ventures and Convergence Ventures, closed its debut fund last year on USD 205m, beating a target of USD 80m. It writes equity cheques of up to USD 3m.
Previous investments by AC in Indonesia’s fledgling retail investor space include participation in a USD 65m round last year robo-advisory app Bibit. The app, which also targets inexperienced investors, raised a USD 80m round in May featuring GIC and Prosus Ventures.
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