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View all search resultsBookkeeping start-up Lummo gets $80m in series C funding
The latest funding round has added to Lummo's war chest as competition to digitize the country’s SME sector heats up.
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B
ookkeeping start-up Lummo, which focuses on small and medium enterprises (SMEs), announced on Wednesday that it had raised US$80 million in series C funding to develop its platform.
The latest funding round was led by previous backer Sequoia Capital India and Tiger Global. Google’s venture capital arm, CapitalG, and several angel investors also participated in the round.
“This round of funding signals strong confidence from global investors that Southeast Asia is a booming region, especially in the technology sector,” Lummo founder and COO Lorenzo Peracchione told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.
He said that the fund would be used to develop new features, such as chat commerce and catalogs for different e-commerce platforms. Lummo also planned to enhance its website builder and add personalized features.
Digitizing SMEs, especially warung (vendor kiosks), has become a trend among tech companies, as small retailers make up a major chunk of Indonesia’s $380 billion retail market, according to management consulting company Redseer. SMEs also account for around 60 percent of the country's gross domestic product and employ some 97 percent of its total labor force.
Rival SME bookkeeping start-up BukuWarung announced in June last year that it had bagged $60 million in a series A funding.
Read also: Tech giants race to digitize ‘warung’
Lummo’s latest capital injection brings its total funding to over $150 million. Last year, the company bagged $10 million and $50 million in its series A and B funding rounds, respectively.
Peracchione added that the company had rebranded from BukuKas to Lummo, while its flagship online shop builder TOKKO would be rebranded as Lummo Shop.
“Lummo will be the mother brand for the company, which will house a different set of products,” he said.
Peracchione went on to say that Lummo’s gross merchandise value (GMV) grew 11 times from December 2020 to December 2021.
The company also claimed to have around 6 million SMEs on board its platform as of May 2021.
Last year, Indonesia had around 64,000 SMEs, but only 15.9 million had digitized their businesses.
Read also: Going digital' means win-win for SMEs, e-commerce platforms
“Merchants need education on two fronts. One is how to use the product, and the second is how to run their business,” Peracchione said. “We want to be there for the merchant, to bring technology with a soul.”
He said that Lummo had been building relationships with its merchants and disbursing education material through a community channel called Tokko Semesta. The company planned to deepen the channel's presence, especially in Bandung and Surabaya.
“Hopefully, once the pandemic resolves, entrepreneurship can continue to grow strongly,” he added.
John Curtius, Partner at Tiger Global, said in a press statement on Wednesday that "digital-led economic growth, especially in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, is a key investment focus for us".
