Stock trading app Ajaib raised a $270M Series C from SBI Holdings, the largest round since 2022 in Indonesia, where startups raised just ~$340M last year
Context & Ripple Effects
Ajaib had already progressed from a $25 million Series A in 2021 to a $153 million Series B at a $1 billion valuation later that year. The SBI round extends that funding arc with a single strategic investor.
The scale matters against Indonesia’s roughly $340 million in startup fundraising last year: one financing is close to that total. It also eclipses the $110 million Series B assembled by investment-app rival Pluang in 2022.
First-order effects
- Ajaib receives $270 million to fund its stock-trading and investment-app business, while SBI Holdings becomes a major capital partner in Indonesia’s consumer-investing market.
- The round resets the near-term financing benchmark for Indonesian startups after a year in which total fundraising was about $340 million.
Second-order effects
- Pluang and other Indonesian investing-app operators face a better-funded Ajaib, increasing pressure to show a differentiated product or secure strategic backing rather than compete only for venture capital.
- SBI’s investment gives cross-border investors a high-profile reference point for deploying large checks into Indonesian fintech, even as the wider local funding market has been constrained.
Third-order effects
- If similar financings remain concentrated in established platforms, Indonesia’s startup market may divide more sharply between companies able to attract strategic foreign capital and earlier-stage firms facing smaller funding pools.
- The deal points toward strategic investors playing a larger role in Southeast Asian fintech funding, with capital tied more closely to market access and operating partnerships than broad venture deployment.
The trend: Indonesian fintech is moving toward concentrated, cross-border strategic funding as large rounds become rarer than the capital needs of scaled consumer platforms.