Heaptalk, Jakarta — Ride-hailing company inDrive has released a new venture and merger and acquisition (M&A) arm, namely inDrive New Ventures, to inject into a promising startup with a total value of up to US$100 million.
In its operation, a professional investment and entrepreneur, Andries Smit, will serve as the Vice President of New Ventures. The firm will focus on rapid enhancement and positive impact with the following investment criteria, including:
- Challenging injustice: a mission-driven approach to improve lives
- Local to Global: injecting fresh capital into the startup with tremendous potential for global expansion
- Post-Seed and Pre-Series A round: supporting startups with proven product-market fit with significant enhancement up to two – threefold YoY
- Rapid Organic Growth: focusing on startups with flourishing economics and cash flow
In the initial journey, the new ventures’s Vice President, Andries Smit, revealed that inDrive is the underdog and continues to demonstrate fantastic business growth to become a global company. Through this measure, inDrive claimed to amplify its commitment to challenge injustice by bolstering successful but overlooked startups.
“The company is uniquely positioned to make this effort by leveraging its significant progress in emerging markets with much weaker access to capital than developed countries. I am thrilled to apply my venture building and investing experience to help the founders transform to scale up their successful business that contributes to a better world,” added Smit.
On the other hand, inDrive’s New Ventures unit will also be dedicated to boosting investee and acquired companies to expand rapidly across the platform. These companies are set to obtain a competitive edge by tapping their global multi-million customer base across over 45 markets in 700 cities.
Regarding the investment target, the ventures will primarily address investing in ride-hailing startups, such as delivery, where the drivers can tap into an additional service. Besides, the inDrive investment unit will also inject capital into the fintech and insurtech startups.
In response to this milestone, the President of inDrive, Mar Loughran, conveyed, “This venture arm intends to discover overlooked, high-growth startups operating outside of traditional innovation hub regions and support their development to increase their positive impact. Smit has a unique blend of corporate that makes him a perfect fit to lead New Ventures, expecting to back us surpass our investment goals,”
As additional information, Smit has held critical strategic roles in startup and corporate organizations, leading business transformation, acquisition, and integration at major corporations, including Morgan Stanley and Aviva. He also established ventures as a partner at Stryber, a leading strategic growth partner and independent corporate venture builder in Europe, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific.
