Singapore-based ecommerce marketing startup raises $1m to enter Indonesia

Email and digital marketing startup Ematic Solutions has raised a pre-series A round of close to US$1 million, it announced today. The funding comes from MDI Ventures, a venture capital fund backed by Telkom Indonesia, the country’s major telco.

The pre-series A round comes just two months after Ematic raised its seed round, worth US$1.07 million, led by Wavemaker Partners and joined by 500 Startups and Convergence Ventures.

The funding will be used to intensify the Singapore-based startup’s quest for regional expansion. Indonesia was already a priority destination for the company, and it expects MDI’s support to help it further along. It has just opened an office in Jakarta, its first outside of Singapore, and is currently recruiting there.

Ematic’s products include HiIQ, a tool that figures out when is the best time to reach out to which customer, and ByeIQ, a method for encouraging engagement when a user is about to leave your website.

Indonesia is a particularly attractive market for Ematic given its mammoth market size and ecommerce potential. The numbers are well known; a population of 250 million, the largest in Southeast Asia, with a recent annual GDP increase of five to six percent. A 65.6 percent growth for retail ecommerce in 2015, according to eMarketer. 73 million internet users – the highest number in Southeast Asia.

“Indonesia has the largest internet population in Southeast Asia, which is set to grow at a blistering pace,” says Ematic founder and CEO Paul Tenney in a statement. “There has been a huge pull for us from regional and local online retailers to be in Indonesia to help these retailers capitalize on this opportunity.”

Paul explains that the resources provided by MDI Ventures in terms of investment and market insight will help Ematic to quickly expand in the country. Telkom’s 150 million customer base and network is also an attractive prospect for the startup.

Even in the event that market enthusiasm isn’t completely warranted, there’s enough of an incentive for ecommerce players to strike while the iron’s hot. Ematic, in turn, wants to be there to offer its services to those ecommerce players. It’s already signed up high-profile clients like fashion estore Berrybenka and lifestyle marketplace Bobobobo. Back in December, the company had more than 50 clients in Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia.

“Email marketing is the most important channel for digital marketers in Indonesia; we see it contributing between 25 to 35 percent of total sales for the companies we work with,” Paul adds.

“Our approach allows us to achieve desired long term results and improve all marketing metrics within a short period. But more importantly, our solutions are much more manageable for the small marketing teams that we often see in Southeast Asia.”

---

This article by Michael Tegos originally appeared on Tech in Asia, a Burn Media publishing partner.

Image by via Nicolas Lannuzel Flickr.