Ralali, online B2B marketplace for local trade in Indonesia

Ralali has raised $22.5M in total. We talked with Joseph Aditya, CEO, and his team.

PetaCrunch: How would you describe Ralali in a single tweet?

Joseph Aditya: Ralali.com, the first and largest online B2B marketplace platform since 2013. Ralali.com aims to help MSMEs’ businesses in Indonesia. As a business solutions platform, Ralali.com focuses on developing the Digital Ecosystem, the latest feature presenting Finance Technology and BIG Agent platforms. Fintech features (Payment, Financing Tech, Insurance Technology dan Investment) and BIG Agent as an on-demand-jobs platform ​connecting millions of qualified manpower with technology to help businesses, BIG Agent is a technology-based innovation that defines a new way of doing business.

PC: How did it all start and why?

JA: Ralali.com provides a holistic solution for business people starting from the experience of Ralali.com’s founder Joseph Aditya after seeing the inefficiency of the procurement of goods and supply schemes for businesses and MSMEs and the difficulty in obtaining supplies according to business needs. In 2013 Joseph Aditya presenting Ralali.com which connects MSMEs entrepreneurs to the supply of MRO category needs. Upon seeing huge B2B market potential yet it has not been worked out to its maximum potential and responding to the needs of MSMEs entrepreneurs, Business Initiatives Group (BIG) vertical segmentation model. Ralali.com at 2018 were introduced to provide segment-specific solutions so buyers can find the right merchandising as well as other solutions, such as financing or insurtech, covering food services industry (BIG Resto), office support (BIG Office), automotive (BIG Auto), building materials (BIG Home), FMCG supply (BIG Mart), general merchandise (BIG Market) and job-based agent service (BIG Agent).

PC: What have you achieved so far?

JA: Ralali.com recently has secured Series C investment, led by Arbor Ventures (Singapore), TNB Aura (Singapore) and Mr. Jo Hirao (Japan), the founder of ZIGExN Co., Ltd., with the participation of AddVentures (Thailand) and Qualgro (Singapore) as existing investors. Ralali.com currently connects 12K suppliers including big brands such as Unilever Food Solutions, PaperOne, Asus, Siam Cement Group, P&G, Unil Opal with more than half a million MSMEs across Indonesia as its users. Offering a one-stop tech-based solution including web and mobile app for order placement, Ralali now provides fulfillment and financing access solutions for MSMEs. Also with BIG Agent as Growth Engine to collect BIG Data, now ​there are more 300.000 Agents spread across 25 cities in Indonesia​, BIG Agent is connecting 1500 businesses with Ralali.com fintech partner, with total funding of IDR 18bio. Even markets that have never been explored before now can get access to expansion and development.

PC: How will you use your recent funding round?

JA: Ralali.com is aiming to enable MSMEs in sourcing, scaling and sustaining their business across Indonesia. With more than 60 million MSMEs in the country, only less than 8%​ of them are digitally-ready. Ralali.com finds these as a purpose to make a contribution through technology. Offering a one-stop tech-based solutions including web and mobile app for order placement, Ralali.com now provides fulfilment and financing solutions for MSMEs. Our mission is to help traditional MSMEs to grow by leveraging digital technology. This funding will help us in scaling up our technology and our team to serve millions of Indonesian MSMEs in fulfilling their business needs through Ralali.com’s digital platform.

PC: ​What do you plan to achieve in the next 2–3 years?

JA: Ralali.com’s significant growth at 5 times in merchandize value across 2018 and on track to grow more than 3–4 fold across 25 cities in Indonesia this 2019, what is interesting about Ralali.com is that its platform has BIG Agents, on-demand freelancers to survey and educate market to go digital. With 300K agents across greater Jakarta, Sumatera, Java, and Kalimantan islands, MSMEs can be reached effectively and efficiently to meet their needs through platform. Future Ralali.com will increase the number of buyers and gain more 3–4 GMV more than this year.