BintanGO wants to boost Indonesia’s creator economy

BintanGO has almost everything Indonesian creators need to monetize their content. First, there is its CreatorSpace, which helps them manage brand collaborations by measuring engagement and sending invoices.

Businesses, meanwhile can search through BintanGO’s marketplace for a verified creator, who are accepted based on social media followers, post consistency and aesthetics. And finally, it has an app where fans can get video shout-outs from their favorite influencers or celebrities, similar to Cameo in the States.

Today the Jakarta-based startup announced that it has raised $2.1 million in seed funding led by Investible, eWTP Technology and Innovation Fund with participation from Farquhar, Plug and Play, Aksara, Redbadge Pacific, Moonshot Ventures, Mulia Sky Capital and United Creative. BintanGO’s last funding was a $500,000 pre-seed round in June 2021, before its launch in September.

BintanGO co-founders Jason Lee and Oktorika Mandasari

CEO Jason Lee, who co-founded BintanGO along with Oktorika Mandasari said that one of the challenges faced by Indonesian creators is that they have to manage multiple sources of income, making invoicing and payments a challenge. Furthermore, in Indonesia, they are classified as informal workers, making it hard to get financing and credit from financial institutions. BintanGO’s goal is to solve all those issues.

BintanGO says it onboarded more than 4,000 creators last month, and that creators on the platform have earned a total of almost $100,000 in the past three months. BintanGO started with its video shout-out app, which in turn prompted the creation of its other features.

Lee told TechCrunch that smaller creators also wanted to get on BintanGO, which led to him and Mandasari realizing the difficulties that the face in turning their content into a business. CreatorSpace, with its invoicing and business management tools, is available to all creators, regardless of their size.

One of the ways BintanGO differentiates from other creator platforms is that it also provides invoice financing solutions to creators as well. Lee said creators often don’t get paid until as late as 60 to 90 days after a project, so BintanGO offers them solutions like early payment.

BintanGo monetizes with a platform fee for every transaction, ranging from 1% to 5% of its value, depending on the service used.