Dubbed as Indonesia’s first equity crowdfunding platform to have expanded its license to become a securities crowdfunding platform, Bizhare has issued two Sukuk facilities via its platform and is eyeing more offerings.
“We will issue more Sukuk because there are many requests for Sukuk issuances in the telecommunications, coal, export and culinary industries. By the end of this year, four new Sukuk facilities are likely to be issued with a value of around IDR10 billion (US$695,314),” Giovanni Umboh, Bizhare’s chief technology officer, tells IFN Fintech.
Mazhak Teknik Indonesia, a vendor of Indofood Group, was the first company to utilize the crowdfunding platform to issue a Sukuk facility, raising IDR1.1 billion (US$77,179.9). Proceeds will be utilized to manufacture milk processing machines for Indofood Group.
Following that, Megacon Precast Concrete also issued a Sukuk facility via Bizhare to raise IDR1.98 billion (US$137,672) to manufacture precasts of absorption wells, which will be used by the DKI regional government.
Who is Bizhare?
Bizhare is the brainchild of CEO Heinrich Vincent, who saw difficulties in SME funding and in the business investment industry. As an investor himself, Vincent aimed to help Indonesians reach financial freedom.
“Currently, there are not many securities crowdfunding platforms in Indonesia. There are seven platforms that have been licensed by OJK [Otoritas Jasa Keuangan] and 30 others are still applying to the regulator. Even so, Bizhare has its own advantages in terms of the various business types that we offer and the quality of portfolios we offer, among others,” Giovanni says.
The crowdfunding platform, licensed by OJK, offers various services and investment products ranging from equity, bonds and Sukuk for SMEs, franchise businesses and also technology start-ups (eMerge) in partnership with MDI Ventures, among others. It has in place a Shariah supervisory board assigned by Dewan Syariah Nasional–Majelis Ulama Indonesia and led by Awang Muda Satria and Rully Agustian, to supervise the Shariah compliance of its offerings.
“We help SMEs, franchises and start-ups to get funding by sharing the ownership of their company or through the issuance of bonds and Sukuk to public investors throughout Indonesia, through our securities crowdfunding system.
“Apart from that, Bizhare has also collaborated with the Central Securities Depository to launch the first secondary market transactions in Indonesia, through the Bizhare platform which was launched in February 2021 in a bid to increase the liquidity of shares from our business,” Giovanni explains.
Bizhare is building its machine learning system and is planning to raise funding in its Series A funding round with some notable venture capital companies in the next six months.
Looking ahead, the platform aims to boost the total investment growth and the number of investors that are using the platform, while onboarding thousands of business profiles to be promoted in its app while waiting for the due diligence to be completed by its analyst.