The enabler: Pandu Sjahrir looks to ride Indonesia’s next tech wave 

PANDU Sjahrir was working in the United States about a decade ago when his uncle, Luhut Pandjaitan, rang him and asked him to return to Indonesia to manage his fast-growing coal company.

Pandjaitan is currently the Coordinating Minister of Maritime and Investment Affairs, and under Sjahrir’s leadership, that company – Toba Bara Sejahtra (TBS) – went public in 2012, raising US$75 million in what was then the largest coal-related initial public offering.

“I came back to Indonesia to work for my uncle, but I really wanted to go into investing,” the 43-year-old told The Business Times in a recent interview in Jakarta. “He told me to remain at TBS, so I started investing my own money in tech startups.”

As fate would have it, Sjahrir was introduced to a group of young technopreneurs around the same time as his uncle was roped in to help Joko Widodo’s bid to become Indonesia’s president. 

In 2013, Sjahrir met Willson Cuaca, who co-founded venture capital firm East Ventures, one of the first investors in unicorns such as Tokopedia and Traveloka. A year later, Widodo ran for the presidency and Sjahrir met Farina Situmorang, who was leading the future president’s social media campaign strategy.

The confluence of politics and the explosion of social media would forever change Indonesia’s economic growth trajectory and lay the foundations of the country’s current dynamic digital economy.  

“We saw that there was potential for digital absorption, as Jokowi had the fastest growing Facebook page at that time,” he added. “We became bullish and realised that this digital thing was real, so we doubled down and focused most of our campaigning on digital platforms.”

There was no turning back, and Sjahrir went on to become one of the most influential tech investors in Indonesia. In 2015, he was appointed chairman of Shopee, an upcoming e-commerce platform under SEA.

His first big break, as he puts it, was when he took Garena – an online gaming company under SEA – public, because he realised that “this asset class was real”.

In the 5 years that followed, he also launched his own venture capital firm, AC Ventures, with market veterans Michael Soerijadji and Adrian Li. In 2017, Sjahrir joined Indies Capital Partners, which is headquartered in Singapore.

AC Ventures currently has US$500 million in assets under management across different funds. More than US$1 billion has been invested under Indies Capital, with US$800 million in capital returned to investors.

Both firms have grown significantly in terms of funds under management as well as staff numbers which now exceed 50 combined. But according to Sjahrir, he is just getting started.

“For all our initial success, we are just entering ‘primary school’ and we still have a lot to learn,” he noted. “We must now prepare for the next wave of digitalisation and growth.”

To this end, he is focusing on 3 pillars: e-commerce, e-logistics, and fintech. These sectors will ride on the transition from 4G to 5G infrastructure, especially in second and third tier cities across Indonesia.

“The next decade will be golden years for tech in Indonesia,” Sjahrir said. “As the country gets wealthier, technology will get better pricing and we aim to double our revenues.”

Economists expect Indonesia’s per capita GDP to double from the current US$4,500 over the next decade, with the capital Jakarta’s per capita GDP expected to exceed US$30,000 over the same period. “That would be a US$600 billion economy in Jakarta alone, so we want to tap that emerging opportunity,” he said.

Through TBS, Sjahrir set up a 50:50 joint venture with Gojek to provide electric vehicles to its driver partnersa, which would include financing and end-to-end solutions marrying energy transition and technology. Sjahrir is currently serving on the GoTo Financial board of commissioners.

“This could be a gamechanger for the country and we are the majority owners of the company that is providing the solution,” he said. “I see myself as an enabler and provider of capital that can add value.”

The fact that he wears multiple hats, including being a commissioner of the Indonesian Stock Exchange and vice-president of TBS Energy Utama, allows Sjahrir to have a bird’s eye view of the economy and the role technology can play beyond the tech sector.

While he sees the enormous opportunities that could open up, he is also acutely aware of the challenges the country and his company face, chief among them the growing income inequality as new billionaires are minted. 

“A lot of focus should be on the economy and promoting social equality,” he noted. “There is growing income inequality in the country, which is also true for many other nations. In the sectors that we are present, our job is to voice our concerns and the needs of the country.”

When he started out, Sjahrir invested all his money, including bonuses, into the companies he helmed. Today, he has more than 6o companies in his portfolio and over US$1 billion in investments. His investors include global funds and institutions as well as some of the most prominent Indonesian business families.

If, as he says, he is just getting started, the signs point to Sjahrir playing a key role in charting the next phase of Indonesia’s digital economy’s growth and development.