Although interest in crypto is waning in the Western world, it seems that interest is growing in Indonesia. This is underlined by the Indonesian crypto platform Pintu, which announced today that it has raised 106 million euros during an investment round.
Pintu means door in Indonesian, and the two-year-old crypto company hopes to open the door for millions of Indonesians.
Large investors
The investment round saw four large, prominent, international investors in Pantera Capital, Intudo Ventures, Lightspeed and Northstar Group. There was also a lead investor in this round, said Pintu’s founder and CEO Jeth Soetoyo, but he declined to name it because the investor prefers not to be disclosed. But that investor is a global venture capital firm, he said.
With the fall of Terra, you would think that investors would be reluctant to invest big money in start-ups, but Soetoyo says that is not so bad in his case. He says that even before Terra collapsed, investors knew about Pintu’s position in the market and were comfortable with it.
What to do with 106 million
The €106 million raised will be used to scale the platform and get it ready for the next bull run. New features will be built and the trading platform will support more blockchains. The company also plans to add more tokens and launch new products to further strengthen their position in Indonesia.
Part of the funding will be spent on Pintu Academy, an educational programme for crypto traders that aims to spread awareness about the opportunities and risks of crypto investing. Pintu also plans to double its current workforce of about 200 people in various positions over the next two years, Soetoyo said.
Indonesia in early stages
In the past year, the number of Indonesian investors in crypto has doubled. Soetoyo therefore sees opportunities:
“We believe that crypto adoption in Indonesia is still in its early stages, and educating users on the basics is crucial to ensure that this growth continues in a healthy way.”
Difference Netherlands and Indonesia
Pintu was founded two years ago, so it’s clever that they’re already able to raise so much money. But somewhere it is understandable. In the Netherlands (with 17.5 million inhabitants), there are dozens of companies where you can invest in crypto like BLOX and BTC Direct. Besides the Dutch companies, you can also use international exchanges like Binance.
In Indonesia (with 275 million inhabitants) there are actually only two competitors for Pintu: Indodax and TokoCrypto. In addition, the websites and apps of many international companies (such as Binance) are banned from the country. There is little competition so there is plenty of growth to be had in Indonesia.
In total, there are now 12 million crypto investors in Indonesia and according to Pintu’s own statement, the app has been installed 2 million times. The total figures in a country are always difficult to verify, because some users use multiple apps to trade.
According to research by Accenture, 9% of the portfolios of rich Indonesian investors consist of cryptocurrency. With this, the country shares the leading position with Thailand in Asia.
Although half of the investors in Asia already held bitcoin and/or other crypto in the first quarter of 2022, Accenture research indicates that another 21% will invest by the end of 2022. This means that by the end of 2022, as many as 73% of wealthy Asian investors will hold cryptocurrency.
