PYMNTS-MonitorEdge-May-2024

Report: Indonesia’s GajiGesa Adds New Investors

Indonesia Digital Banking

GajiGesa, an Indonesian FinTech serving the country’s vast population of underbanked workers, has added new investors that will provide funds for adding services and customers, TechCrunch reported, attributing the information to the company.

The outlet didn’t provide an amount for the new funding, which reportedly came from OCBC NISP Ventura and the founders of the coffee chain Kopi Kenangan. OCBC is tied to a major bank in Indonesia. The founders of Kopi Kenangan reportedly have become prolific angel investors.

GajiGesa Indonesia, which describes itself on its LinkedIn page as “the financial wellness platform helping millions of Indonesians achieve financial dignity and security from their work,” announced the new funding on the same social media platform.

“We’re excited to accelerate our mission to expand financial resilience beyond big enterprise to digitally empower millions of micro-entrepreneurs and small business owners,” the company’s post stated. “Indonesia’s (medium and small enterprises) remain chronically underserved and need digital solutions to manage their workforce.”

GajiGesa’s services include a system that lets employees collect earnings electronically almost as soon as they’ve logged the work, rather than waiting for paychecks to come at the end of traditional pay periods.

Speaking with PYMNTS in February, GajiGesa Co-founder Vidit Agrawal said, “We have this very interesting opportunity where over time, we learn about the spending behavior of the employees and their needs, and we can help the employee make better decisions. Over time, we believe, we can also get banks to provide better financial products that are going to improve the lives of these individuals, because clearly there is a disconnect today.”

Noting that Indonesia has 92 million unbanked potential customers, Agawarl said, “When you think about it, especially the blue-collar worker with a very limited financial understanding — because of that, he or she gets cheated time and again. We want to be the platform that provides access to wage and financial education so workers can start building some capability to more fully manage their total financial life.”

GajiGesa was founded in 2020 by Agawarl and his wife, Martyna Malinowska. The company announced earlier this year that it had landed $2.5 million in seed-round funding from investors, including Defy.vc, Quest Ventures, GK-Plug and Play Indonesia, Next Billion Ventures, Alto Partners and Kanmo Group.

PYMNTS-MonitorEdge-May-2024