Heaptalk, Jakarta — A Product-as-a-Service (PaaS) startup Bioma has completed its undisclosed amount of pre-seed funding round led by East Ventures and Init-6. The team plans to expand the services for various customer cases. The company will also allocate the fund to resource augmentation, product, and tech-talents enlargement, allowing a seamless user experience.
Bioma’s Chief Executive Officer, Arlo Erdaka, stated, “We are pleased to receive the trust and support from East Ventures and Init-6. We believe in the mission of enabling and transforming businesses in Indonesia into asset-light businesses, which can save up countless time, energy, and money for the business in managing these physical items,”
This startup provides numerous solutions in terms of flexibility, optionality, and convenience for businesses to rent items instead of purchasing them. This model also solves businesses’ operational hassle of fulfilling and retaining purchased items.
Besides, the asset-light solution offers a circular approach as an environmentally friendly alternative to the current unsustainable consumption pattern. In terms of decreasing the waste amount, the team will tackle the refurbishment of each item to extend its life cycle and close the loop by recycling, upcycling, and repurposing methods.
Leading the pre-seed round, East Venture’s Partner, Avina Sugianto, revealed the shifting in purchasing behavior. She expects the presence of Bioma can bridge the gap between asset owners and users for better product utilization. With a strong desire and experience across tech, product, and operations, Avina aims to grow with this startup in expediting a more circular ecosystem.
In the operational aspect, This PaaS platform allows numerous brands to become circular. Adopting a similar vision to grant asset-light business, more than 90% of the Bioma inventory offered belongs to third parties, containing brands and individuals through a profit-sharing model. With this scheme implementation, brands can penetrate their networks into the rental market without building the rental supply chain.
This startup has served multiple business sectors, from property to agriculture, and different sizes, from startups to large corporations. Bioma offers a rental marketplace of a broad range of physical assets accessible through its website. Bioma continuously discovers more use cases for the service, showing its wide-ranging possibilities and growth potential.
Following the funding, the Venture Partner of Init-6, Rexi Christopher, realized the global trend is gradually moving from the mainstream, buy-and-dispose, linear economy to the sharing economy, which would establish a huge market potential. Through the investment support for this startup, Rexi claimed Bioma’s existence is a perfect time to rent solutions for retail customers and other business players.
