Grab Announces 5 Startups Finalists of GVV 3rd Generation

Grab Indonesia today announced the graduation of five Grab Ventures Velocity (GVV) Batch 3 finalists. This announcement also reinforces Grab’s commitment to encourage the development of the startup ecosystem in Indonesia.

For GVV Batch 3, Grab graduated LunaPOS, Printerous, KlinknClean, GetCraft, and Workmate. The theme for this year is ‘Empowering Micro Entrepreneurs’ with a focus on ‘Supporting Culinary Businesses’.

The five startups have had the opportunity to improve their capabilities through workshops, one-on-one mentoring, and grow their businesses through access to the Grab merchant base.

This year’s graduation was attended by the Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto, Deputy for Production and Marketing at the Ministry of Cooperatives and SMEs Victoria br. Simanungkalit.

Then, there is the Director-General of Informatics Applications of the Ministry of Communication and Information of the Republic of Indonesia Semuel Abrijani Pangerapan, and the CEO of BRI Ventures Nicko Widjaja as Grab Ventures partners.

“Congratulations to GVV Batch 3 graduates and hopefully all of you can continue to have a positive impact on MSMEs to continue to survive in the midst of this COVID-19 pandemic and contribute to the growth of the digital economy,” said Airlangga Hartanto at this graduation ceremony.

Meanwhile, Country Managing Director of Grab Indonesia, Neneng Goenadi said, this program is designed to build a stronger startup ecosystem in Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia.

GVV Graduates are Encouraged to Help Accelerate PEN

The five startups are encouraged to support the government in accelerating the national economic recovery (PEN) with a focus on providing digital solutions for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). As many as 99 percent of businesspeople in Indonesia are MSME players.

With this amount, the government plans to accelerate the digital transformation of MSMEs. This is an opportunity for startups to be able to contribute to PEN. Deputy for Production and Marketing of the Ministry of Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises, Victoria br. Simanungkalit said that digitizing MSMEs is the key to PEN.

This was conveyed in a written report received by Kompas.com, Friday (2/10/2020). Victoria said that the government has allocated IDR 123.46 trillion through the PEN program so that overall collaboration is important.

“I support startups that have graduated from GVV Generation 3 with their digital innovations to continue to empower the survival of MSMEs in the economic recovery phase in Indonesia,” said Victoria representing the Minister of Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises, Teten Masduki.

Activities of GVV Batch 3 Finalists after Graduation

After graduating from the GVV program, LunaPOS, Printerous, and KliknClean will continue to empower MSMEs by joining the Grab ecosystem as official business partners. A number of these startups will contribute to the digitization of MSMEs in “GrabMerchant Partner Solutions”, GrabMerchant’s newest marketplace for Grab’s official partners.

So, this platform provides additional services for GrabFood merchants ranging from POS systems, cleaning services, and affordable digital printing solutions. Grab merchant partners can access this marketplace via a widget in the GrabMerchant application.

“With the strategic advice and recommendations given by Grab during the GVV, we can understand the needs of MSMEs so we can analyze and provide the best solutions for them,” said LunaPOS Co-founder and CEO, Abdullah Lewis.

Later, LunaPOS will also integrate with GrabFood so that orders received by the GrabMerchant application can be recorded directly on LunaPOS seamlessly and automatically.

The Presence of MSMEs at Grab

During the pandemic, Grab itself welcomed more than 350 thousand MSMEs and more than 32 thousand traditional traders to develop their business. With this growth, Grab also launched a ‘Continue Business’ program to help MSMEs adapt to this new normal.

Grab has also signed a memorandum of understanding with KemenkopUKM and hopes to reach more than 400 thousand MSMEs by the end of 2020.

“With the support of these startups and a strong ecosystem, we are very grateful to be able to continue to support the #TerusUsaha program by supporting the various needs of GrabFood merchants through the GrabMerchant Partners Solution marketplace,” said Neneng ending her statement.