Gobi Partners, Ozora Yatrapaktaja launched $10 M seed fund for Indonesian women-led startups

Ratu Nusa Fund, a US $10 million seed fund for women-led enterprises in Indonesia, has been unveiled by VC firms Gobi Partners and Ozora Yatrapaktaja.

The fund will invest in startups in the health tech, e-commerce/social commerce, future-of-work/education, property tech, enterprise/SME tech, and fintech sectors at seed and pre-Series A stages.

The firms also stated in a press release that the fund will focus on companies that aim to improve the livelihoods of women and girls throughout Indonesia; underserved companies in emerging secondary and tertiary cities such as Surabaya, Bali, Denpasar, Nusantara, and Medan; and companies that use technology to broaden access and have the potential to create enhanced efficiencies and scalability.

“Women entrepreneurs have long gotten a small slice of the VC funding pie mainly due to entrenched gender biases, leaving untapped potential from half of the world’s population. The Ratu Nusa Fund was designed to address this gap,” said Gobi Partners Co-Founder Thomas Tsao.

“There’s nowhere better to debut our first women-centric fund than in Indonesia where there are an estimated 30 million active women entrepreneurs who stand to benefit from a thriving startup ecosystem. We are also excited to partner with Ozora with its strong women-led management team and their deep-rooted networks here,” he continued.

Gobi Partners, which was founded in 2002 and has US $1.5 billion in assets under management, assists entrepreneurs from the start through the development stage. Gobi Partners has established 15 funds in 13 regions and invested in 310 businesses, including over 60 in Southeast Asia.

Ozora Yatrapaktaja claims to have extensive local understanding in Indonesia as well as a strong worldwide network of enterprises, governments, organisations, and communities.

Margaret Srijaya, one of the company’s founding partners, is also the creator of Womenpreneurs.id, an online community that strives to empower women through self-improvement and entrepreneurship, which has amassed over 300,000 followers since its inception in 2018.

Srijaya has also worked as the Head of VC at BPP HIPMI Indonesia, as well as the Local President of Junior Chamber International (JCI) East Java in 2017 and the Women Lead Compartment in the Chamber of Commerce Surabaya.