Amid funding crunch, smaller Indonesia startups face hard decision to sell or shut down

[JAKARTA] Faced with a funding crunch, smaller Indonesian startups are starting to reconsider their options, including selling their businesses to larger and more established tech companies – or in the worst case, the grim prospect of closing down entirely.

An increasing number of startups that have secured seed funding, but have run out of cash, are selling their entire businesses to larger tech players, said industry insiders. These startup founders would rather sell at much lower valuations than shut down their companies, they said.

Larger players such as Bukalapak and GoTo, which recently listed on the Indonesian Stock Exchange, have surplus cash and thus the financial firepower to acquire smaller startups that they can incorporate into their ecosystems.