Aldi Adrian Hartanto is vice-president of investments at MDI Ventures, telecommunications firm Telkom’s corporate venture capital (CVC) unit.
Kenneth Li, chief executive and managing partner of MDI Singapore, said: “Despite his current age, Aldi is very much experienced in the Indonesian venture industry since the beginning of the wave.
“I met him when I first started MDI Ventures back in 2015 and, at the time, he was with Fenox Venture Capital. After his tenure, he moved to Mandiri Capital Indonesia (MCI), which is Bank Mandiri’s CVC arm, and [while there,] he caught our eyes at MDI.
“His investment at MCI was stellar to say the least, he led the investments for companies including Amartha and Moka, exited Gojek with $100m-plus, and Investree, of which they made exceptional returns on their own.
“When he decided to join us, we were ecstatic, and his experience at both a Silicon Valley-based VC and a CVC brings heap of expertise and made his adaptation to MDI very swift.
“At MDI, he is tasked with leading and continuing the investment on Telkom Fund I which is a $100m fund. Over the years, it has performed very well, and we have seen a total of seven exits with two initial public offerings (IPOs) and five mergers and acquisitions (M&A).
“We at MDI always aim for greater heights, and we always wanted to perform much better. Aldi has contributed ideas and execution to those new directions by extending our operations in Singapore and Silicon Valley offices along with the establishment of our external funds.
“MDI itself has been a success story within the Telkom group where we have assisted multiple Telkom’s group subsidiaries in exploring and adjusting to the digital world. Several of our portfolios has been deeply integrated within the Telkom’s group subsidiaries and we believe that MDI is very unique in the CVC space where we are allowed to explored many different segments within the digital ecosystem.
“As part of the largest Telecommunication company in Southeast Asia (SEA), we are opening new doors and opportunity for the group to access new market where we invested, over the years MDI has invested in more than 10 countries and growing. The success of our fund has opened new doors to our second and third fund where have launch in the past two years.”
MDI has invested in more than 40 startups in 10 countries, fully deploying its first $100m fund. In the past year, Hartanto led five exits, including an IPO – messaging software provider Whispir floated on the Australian Securities Exchange in mid-2019, while online payment technology developers Coda Payments and Red Dot Payment, cloud communication platform Wavecell and cybersecurity software provider ObserveIT were all acquired.
For the rest of 2020, Hartanto will continue transforming MDI from a conventional CVC unit to a multi-stage VC having launched two independent vehicles – an Indonesia-focused TMI (Telkomsel Mitra Innovasi) seed fund with $40m assets under management (AUM) and a US-oriented growth fund with $150m targeted AUM – counting external limited partners.
The unit is also in the process of closing Telkom Fund II with a targeted $500m AUM that will concentrate on later-stage startups globally.
After booking $10m in net profit after tax in 2019, MDI became one of the most profitable subsidiaries within Telkom Group, with the first fund’s gross internal rate of return reaching 28.3%.
To improve the overall CVC industry, Hartanto shared his opinion: “More CVCs have to act like independent VCs by aligning the strategic agenda with the investment agenda – despite focusing on synergy, CVCs still need to maintain objectivity on the investment opportunity, with assumption that the company will still doing well with or without collaboration with the parent.”
Hartanto served as investment analyst at boutique investment firm Asia Strategic Advisory and a consultant at Toyota Indonesia before joining the VC world as the founding member of Pegasus Tech Ventures (then known as Fenox VC), the first Silicon Valley-based VC firm in SEA.
