Indonesian digital content platform KaryaKarsa bags $500K in funding

Indonesian digital content platform KaryaKarsa announced raising $500,000 in its seed funding round, which will support its growth in the Southeast Asian market and advance its platform.

The round was led by Accelerating Asia, Sketchnote Partners, and a number of other institutional and angel investors, as per the announcement.

Ario Tamat, KaryaKarsa’s Chief Executive Officer, said the new funds will enable them to expand their offering and empower more creators to develop sustainable livelihoods.

“We are grateful for the trust our partners have placed in our vision,” Tamat said in a statement.

In October alone, the platform’s number of transactions increased 60 percent month on month.

Tamat added that they’ve increased the number of new creators on the platform by 135 percent.

KaryaKarsa has collaborated with more than 40,000 creators and served 300,000 users.

Its platform enables creators to promote their digital content or service offerings, such as books, comics, audio, video, and other digital goods, directly to their audience without going through middlemen.

Craig Bristol Dixon, General Partner at Accelerating Asia, said they are proud to be an early investor in the company as it builds the creative economy in Indonesia.

KaryaKarsa is on track to capitalise on growth in the creative economy in Indonesia, which is ranked the third largest in the world in terms of contribution to GDP.

Francisco de le Pena from Sketchnote Partners, said they’ve seen also how the gig economy has grown in Southeast Asia as well as in Indonesia.

He added that they believe that the creator economy will be “the next growth wave”.

KaryaKarsa estimates there are 8 million creators with audiences in Southeast Asia and enabling them “to monetize their audiences will be a turning point in democratizing the entertainment industry.”

In line with this development, the company and Board have appointed J. P. Ellis as an official advisor being a seasoned Jakarta-based founder, technology executive and policy leader in the financial technology industry.