Indonesia's and China's technology ecosystems continue to interweave and overlap. BAce Capital is a venture firm whose very mission is to connect markets such as Indonesia to China's dynamic tech eco-system. Claiming Ant Financial as its anchor LP, the firm was founded by Ant and Alibaba veterans Benny Chen and "KK" Kshitij Karundia. In this instalment of Sino Indo Tekno, Benny reflects on the many benefits that the Indonesian entrepreneur can realize in working closely with his/her counterparts in China.
The founding team of BAce played key roles in higher profile Alibaba and Ant Financial investments such as Lazada and Tokopedia in Indonesia, and PayTM and Zomato in India. BAce invests in an Indonesian start-up if the partners can easily connect that company to longer term learning relationships with: 1) Alibaba and Ant Financial themselves (China's absolute leaders in e-commerce and fintech, respectively), and 2) some of the hundreds of investee companies within Ant and Alibaba's broader ecosystems.
How do companies in China scale? What are best practices in product development? What are the most powerful ways to leverage big data? Benny profiled a number of activities that his team has arranged for BAce Indonesian portfolio companies such as Printerous and RoomMe. Learning visits to meet industry peers in China helped answer questions such as those above, while focused workshops on Chinese COVID mitigation techniques offered these companies valuable coping mechanisms for the pandemic. In his concluding remarks, Benny suggests that continuous improvements in Indonesian infrastructure and expansion in digital payments & logistics are key to driving further online growth.