Exclusive: Gojek Exec Joins Seed Round of Indonesian Phone Marketplace

Deepti Sri | 19 May 2022

Indonesia-based Jagofon, a marketplace for secondhand smartphones, is looking to raise funds in the range of US$1 million to US$2 million as part of its seed round, the company told Tech in Asia.

Currently, the company has raised over US$549,000 from angel investors including Antoine de Carbonnel (Gojek chief commercial officer), Gregoire Dumoulin (Bak2 group CEO), and Pascal Viguie, who led used-car platform 321 Auto to a US$30 million exit.

Founded in July 2020, Jagofon aims to reduce the electronic waste and carbon dioxide emissions from the sale of smartphones. It aims to do this by reselling devices with stringent quality controls.

The company runs about 90 functionality tests for each device to check for non-original parts, batteries, cameras, speakers, microphones, and sensors, among others.

Jagofon was founded by former AiiMS Indonesia systems developer Asoka Wotulo, and Stéphane Becquart, who is a board member at the Business Angel Network of Southeast Asia. He is also the co-founder of Swiss-Asia Financial Services.

“About 30% to 40% of the secondhand smartphones in the market are defective and have a bad price in nature,” Becquart told Tech in Asia. “People are often afraid they will get scammed and will buy a defective product. We are trying to solve the trust issue from the customer’s side.”

The Indonesia-based company also aims to support homegrown smartphones by providing discounted local options on its platform.

While the company’s services are primarily available in Jakarta, it is looking to expand into other regions across Indonesia in the future. Jagofon also has plans to expand its product categories on its platform to tablets, gaming consoles, personal computers, smart watches, and drones, among others.