JABAR EKSPRES – Telkomsel’s Vice President of Corporate Communications, Saki Hamsat Bramono, revealed that venture capital companies are currently more interested in providing funding to startups that have strong fundamentals.
This is due to a change in trends in funding in the startup industry, which currently prioritizes supporting sustainable businesses rather than looking at the valuation of a company.
“Startups that have recently been funded inevitably have to have a mindset to think about their business fundamentals first and then create their valuation,” said Saki in a press conference at the peak of Telkomsel’s startup incubation program, NextDev Summit 2023, which took place in Jakarta on Wednesday (6/7).
As a subsidiary of state-owned enterprise PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia Tbk (Telkom), Telkomsel, which is closely related to digital transformation and supports the development of the startup ecosystem in Indonesia, considers this understanding important for startups.
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For this reason, in its social responsibility program NextDev 2023, which incubates several startups, Telkomsel provides a new curriculum that focuses on strengthening the fundamentals of these startups.
The fundamentals refer not only to preparing a business model but also preparing human resource development in startups, proper financial arrangements, and preparing legal aspects in building a company.
“We make it clear that a startup is a business. For those (startups) who are in the early stage, they like not knowing the importance of fundamentals. Therefore, we prepare a curriculum that not only creates valuation but also has strong fundamentals,” said Telkomsel’s Manager of CSR Education and Public Community Development, Hadi Sucipto, who developed the new NextDev 2023 curriculum.
According to Hadi, now that they have been given education and understanding about the importance of fundamentals in a startup company, the startups fostered in NextDev 2023 have a frame of mind that prioritizes business sustainability.