CoAssets in crowdfunding platform tie-up

COASSETS, a Singapore real estate crowdfunding company which was listed on Australia's National Stock Exchange (NSX) in July, has formed a joint venture (JV) with Surabaya-based property development group PT Javaland Promosia Indonesia to launch Indonesia's maiden real estate crowdfunding platform.

For a start, the JV will generate over S$100 million in real estate crowdfunding opportunities, CoAssets announced on Monday.

Chief executive Getty Goh told BT: "Being the first such company in the region to venture into Indonesia alongside a local partner as well as to list on an exchange is proof of our commitment to do things right and become a major real estate crowdfunding platform in Asia-Pacific."

The JV platform, named PT CoAssets Javaland Indonesia, will allow property investors to invest or co-invest in real estate units or development projects, or purchase real estate units before their official launch.

As partner, Javaland will use the platform for all of its property developments in Indonesia and introduce new property developers to the JV, having been successfully operating in Indonesia for a decade, said Mr Goh.

Some 1,000 investors have registered interest in the platform, he added, and a number of them are clients of financial institutions (FIs) in Indonesia with which the JV has partnered.

As part of outreach efforts, the JV will collaborate with two Indonesian FIs to organise an expo for property, investing and crowdfunding in Surabaya on Nov 25 and 26. Said Mr Goh: "Surabaya is an up-and-coming city with several development projects that need bridging of S$1-5 million. It will be our testbed in Indonesia; if response is good, we will open a second office in Jakarta."

Indonesia presents a major growth opportunity for crowdfunding, according to CoAssets, as land acquisition by Indonesian developers cannot be funded by domestic bank loans. "As a result, local property players are increasingly open to tapping offshore bond and bank loan markets or alternative methods of funding, which is a niche that the JV seeks to penetrate," said the company.

CoAssets also has offices in Singapore, Malaysia, China, and Australia. It has since 2014 successfully raised S$30 million - from crowdfunding and sales - for 29 real estate projects, Mr Goh shared.

"Although the cooling measures implemented in recent years have slowed the Singapore property market down, property investment is far from obsolete. Local investors can still look towards emerging markets like Indonesia, whose economies still have great untapped potential for growth," he said.

In May, CoAssets - together with local crowdlending platform New Union and Sweden-based crowdfunding platform FundedByMe - announced a three-party alliance to grow the crowdfunding industry in South-east Asia. Mr Goh said the alliance is currently exploring a "combined crowdfunding project" in which all its three groups of users can partake.

CoAssets shares last traded at A$0.22 (S$0.23) on Thursday.