Indonesia-based financial services firm Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI) plans to establish a corporate venturing unit to invest in financial technology developers, DealStreetAsia reported yesterday, citing finance director Anggoro Eko Cahyo.
The fund will have between Rs 600bn and Rs 700bn ($43m to $50m) to invest and is expected to formally launch later this year, though the firm is yet to decide whether it will acquire an existing venture capital firm to form the unit.
BNI was originally reported in August 2017 to be mulling the possibility of launching a dedicated corporate venturing fund.
The bank is also planning to invest in Fintek Karya Nusantara (Finarya), the operator of a mobile payment platform called LinkAja that lets users pay for goods through their smartphones.
Finarya received $21m in funding from BRI Ventures, the venture capital arm of financial services firm Bank Rakyat Indonesia, in a May 2019 deal that gave the latter a 19% equity stake.
Anggoro said the LinkAja investment will be completed in three phases, with the first being funded through its BNI Sekuritas brokerage arm and the additional capital coming from the forthcoming corporate VC unit.