Pintarnya, an Indonesian employment platform that goes past job matching by providing monetary companies together with full-time and side-gig alternatives, stated it has raised a $16.7 million Collection A spherical.

The funding was led by Sq. Peg with participation from current traders Vertex Enterprise Southeast Asia & India and East Ventures.

Ghirish Pokardas, Nelly Nurmalasari, and Henry Hendrawan based Pintarnya in 2022 to deal with two of the most important challenges Indonesians face day by day: incomes sufficient and borrowing responsibly.

“Historically, mass employees in Indonesia discover jobs offline by job festivals or phrase of mouth, with employers buried in paper functions and candidates not often listening to again. For borrowing, their choices are sometimes restricted to household/buddy or predatory lenders with harsh assortment practices,” Henry Hendrawan, co-founder of Pintarnya, instructed TechCrunch. “We digitize job matching with AI to make hiring sooner and we offer employees with safer, more healthy lending choices — designed round what they will moderately afford, moderately than pushing them deeper into debt.”

Around 59% of Indonesia’s 150 million workforce is employed in the informal sector, highlighting the difficulties these employees encounter in accessing formal monetary companies as a result of they lack verifiable revenue and official employment documentation.

Pintarnya tackles this problem by partnering with asset-backed lenders to supply secured loans, utilizing collateral resembling gold, electronics, or automobiles, Hendrawan added.

Since its seed funding in 2022, the platform at the moment serves over 10 million job seeker customers and 40,000 employers nationwide. Its income has elevated nearly fivefold year-over-year and expects to succeed in break-even by the tip of the yr, Hendrawn famous. Pintarnya primarily serves customers aged 21 to 40, most of whom have a highschool training or a diploma beneath college stage. The startup goals to deal with this underserved section, given the massive inhabitants of blue-collar and casual employees in Indonesia.

“By means of the journey of constructing employment companies, we found that our customers wanted extra than simply jobs — they wanted entry to monetary companies that conventional banks couldn’t present,” stated Hendrawan. “We digitize job matching with AI to make hiring sooner and we offer employees with safer, more healthy lending choices — designed round what they will moderately afford, moderately than pushing them deeper into debt.”

Whereas Indonesia already has job platforms like JobStreet, Kalibrr, and Glints, these primarily cater to white-collar roles, which characterize solely a small portion of the workforce, based on Hendrawan. Pintarnya’s platform is designed particularly for blue-collar employees, providing tailor-made experiences resembling quick-apply choices for walk-in interviews, inexpensive e-learning on related abilities, in-app alternatives for supplemental revenue, and seamless connections to monetary companies like loans.

The identical development is obvious in Indonesia’s fintech sector, which equally caters to white-collar or upper-middle-class customers. Standard credit score scoring fashions for loans, which depend on regular month-to-month revenue and checking account exercise, typically go away blue-collar employees ignored by current fintech suppliers, Hendrawan defined.

When requested about which fintech companies are most in demand, Hendrawan talked about, “Given their employment standing, lending is probably the most in-demand monetary service for Pintarnya’s customers in the present day. We’re planning to ‘graduate’ them to micro-savings and investments down the highway by revolutionary merchandise with our companions.”

The brand new funding will allow Pintarnya to strengthen its platform know-how and broaden its monetary service choices by strategic partnerships. With most Indonesian employees employed in blue-collar and casual sectors, the co-founders see substantial development alternatives within the native market. Leveraging their in depth expertise in managing companies throughout Southeast Asia, they’re additionally open to exploring regional enlargement when the timing is correct.

“Our imaginative and prescient is for Pintarnya to be the on a regular basis companion that empowers Indonesians to not solely make ends meet in the present day, but in addition plan, develop, and improve their lives tomorrow … In 5 years, we see Pintarnya because the go-to tremendous app for Indonesia’s employees, not only for incomes revenue, however as a trusted companion all through their life journey,” Hendrawan stated. “We wish to be the primary cease when somebody is on the lookout for work, a spot that helps them improve their abilities, and a dependable information as they make monetary selections.”