Toyota’s Innova, a very popular car model in Indonesia. Photo credit: Wikimedia.
C88 Group, which owns financial comparison websites and apps in Indonesia and the Philippines, just made its second acquisition.
The startup it snapped up is Otobro, an Indonesia-based site that helps people decide which car or motorcycle to buy and what types of financing are available, C88 CEO JP Ellis told Tech in Asia.
The acquisition intends to fast-track the growth of C88’s automotive finance and insurance category, JP says. He declined to comment how much the deal was worth.
C88 two years ago bought a software company in Manila, ThinkTank Software, and with it an arsenal of fintech-related IP.
More funding
C88, headquartered in Singapore, also recently picked up funding from Kickstart Ventures and Socrates Capital – this is in addition to the series B round led by Telstra in September last year.
The fresh funds will fuel the company’s growth in the Philippines.
In Indonesia, C88 now operates branches in seven major cities. Its brands in Indonesia are CekAja, for things like credit cards, loans, and investment opportunities; Premiro, which specializes in insurance, and now Otobro, which focuses financing and insurance options for cars and motorbikes.
The team of CekAja, one of C88’s companies in Indonesia.
C88’s business isn’t in selling off leads, JP explains. It has a “digital selling rights” agreement with its partners and requires technical integration with the partner’s system. It means C88 customers complete their purchase directly, instead of having their contact information handed off to a third party. It’s comparable to how online travel agents work with airlines.
With this model, C88 became a relevant sales channel. “If a partner [sells] 100 units in a month from all channels, then 10 to 15 come from us,” JP says.
The firm also makes money by working on custom tech solutions with its partners, for example in fraud detection, and by licensing data to partners for things like credit risk assessment.
For Otobro co-founders Patrick Williamson and Mathew Jones it was a quick journey from launch to exit – they started the company last year. It’s yet to be decided if and in what capacity Otobro’s co-founders will remain part of the company now that it’s under the C88 umbrella.
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