Pintarnya raises $16.7M to energy jobs and monetary companies in Indonesia

Pintarnya, an Indonesian employment platform that goes past job matching by providing monetary companies together with full-time and side-gig alternatives, mentioned it has raised a $16.7 million Collection A spherical.

The funding was led by Sq. Peg with participation from current buyers Vertex Enterprise Southeast Asia & India and East Ventures.

Ghirish Pokardas, Nelly Nurmalasari, and Henry Hendrawan based Pintarnya in 2022 to sort out two of the largest challenges Indonesians face day by day: incomes sufficient and borrowing responsibly.

“Historically, mass staff in Indonesia discover jobs offline by means of job festivals or phrase of mouth, with employers buried in paper purposes and candidates not often listening to again. For borrowing, their choices are sometimes restricted to household/pal or predatory lenders with harsh assortment practices,” Henry Hendrawan, co-founder of Pintarnya, informed TechCrunch. “We digitize job matching with AI to make hiring sooner and we offer staff with safer, more healthy lending choices — designed round what they’ll moderately afford, moderately than pushing them deeper into debt.”

Round 59% of Indonesia’s 150 million workforce is employed within the casual sector, highlighting the difficulties these staff encounter in accessing formal monetary companies as a result of they lack verifiable earnings and official employment documentation.

Pintarnya tackles this problem by partnering with asset-backed lenders to supply secured loans, utilizing collateral equivalent to gold, electronics, or autos, Hendrawan added.

Since its seed funding in 2022, the platform at present serves over 10 million job seeker customers and 40,000 employers nationwide. Its income has elevated nearly fivefold year-over-year and expects to achieve break-even by the top of the yr, Hendrawn famous. Pintarnya primarily serves customers aged 21 to 40, most of whom have a highschool training or a diploma beneath college stage. The startup goals to deal with this underserved section, given the massive inhabitants of blue-collar and casual staff in Indonesia.

“By way of the journey of constructing employment companies, we found that our customers wanted extra than simply jobs — they wanted entry to monetary companies that conventional banks couldn’t present,” mentioned Hendrawan. “We digitize job matching with AI to make hiring sooner and we offer staff with safer, more healthy lending choices — designed round what they’ll moderately afford, moderately than pushing them deeper into debt.”

Whereas Indonesia already has job platforms like JobStreet, Kalibrr, and Glints, these primarily cater to white-collar roles, which symbolize solely a small portion of the workforce, based on Hendrawan. Pintarnya’s platform is designed particularly for blue-collar staff, providing tailor-made experiences equivalent to quick-apply choices for walk-in interviews, reasonably priced e-learning on related abilities, in-app alternatives for supplemental earnings, and seamless connections to monetary companies like loans.

The identical development is clear in Indonesia’s fintech sector, which equally caters to white-collar or upper-middle-class customers. Standard credit score scoring fashions for loans, which depend on regular month-to-month earnings and checking account exercise, usually go away blue-collar staff missed by current fintech suppliers, Hendrawan defined.

When requested about which fintech companies are most in demand, Hendrawan talked about, “Given their employment standing, lending is probably the most in-demand monetary service for Pintarnya’s customers at this time. We’re planning to ‘graduate’ them to micro-savings and investments down the highway by means of revolutionary merchandise with our companions.”

The brand new funding will allow Pintarnya to strengthen its platform know-how and broaden its monetary service choices by means of strategic partnerships. With most Indonesian staff employed in blue-collar and casual sectors, the co-founders see substantial progress alternatives within the native market. Leveraging their intensive expertise in managing companies throughout Southeast Asia, they’re additionally open to exploring regional growth when the timing is correct.

“Our imaginative and prescient is for Pintarnya to be the on a regular basis companion that empowers Indonesians to not solely make ends meet at this time, but additionally plan, develop, and improve their lives tomorrow … In 5 years, we see Pintarnya because the go-to tremendous app for Indonesia’s staff, not only for incomes earnings, however as a trusted accomplice all through their life journey,” Hendrawan mentioned. “We wish to be the primary cease when somebody is on the lookout for work, a spot that helps them improve their abilities, and a dependable information as they make monetary choices.”