Altos Ventures lead investment into Indonesia targeted e-commerce platform Plugo

Singapore-based all-in-one e-commerce platform Plugo received $9 million in Series A investment led by Altos Ventures. Plugo is a D2C e-commerce service open solution founded in Singapore by CEO Kyung-Min Bang in October last year. Plugo recently launched a closed beta version. Plugo is targeted at the fastest-growing e-commerce market in Indonesia.

The company hopes to accelerate efforts to recruit domestic and foreign talent ahead of the official version release in early 2023, utilising the Series A funding. The investment was led by Altos Ventures, with BonAngel Partners, Access Ventures, Mahanoosa Capital, Prodigy Investment, and Pearl Abyss Capital. The total amount of investment attracted is about 12 billion won. Plugo plans to focus on opening new services, upgrading products, and recruiting talent through this investment attraction.

In 2016, Plugo CEO Bang Kyung-min also founded Codebrick, which operates Tokotalk, an e-commerce solution service in Indonesia. According to global startup market research firm Pitchbook, Tokotok was acquired last year by Singapore-based conglomerate Sea Limited, which operates Shopee.

Most of the Indonesian market is driven by e-commerce, and Google predicts that Indonesia’s digital economy market will grow to about $130 billion by 2025. B2C transactions have dominated the e-commerce market in Indonesia for the past 10 years, but recently, D2C transactions that connect directly with consumers transparently and efficiently are emerging.

Plugo aims to quickly capture these changes in the Indonesian market and provide services that enable small business owners to build their distinctive brands and create a business environment that can be self-sustaining.

“Local small businesses in Indonesia are facing tremendous change as they embrace digital technology innovation, the e-commerce ecosystem, and dynamic customer buying behavior,” said Plugo CEO Bang Kyung-min. “I want to help small business owners seize new digital economy opportunities and grow together through the all-in-one e-commerce solution provided by Plugo,” he added.

Moon-seok Oh, partner of Altos Ventures, who led the investment, said, “Plugo is preparing an excellent service that can change the future of e-commerce in Indonesia. We saw that we were creating economic value while making an impact, and we decided to make this investment to support the company’s vision and business growth.”

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