Nusantics raised seed funding from East Ventures
20 March 2020
Jakarta, 20 March 2020 – Nusantics, a genomics technology company, today announced it has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding led by East Ventures. The fresh fund will accelerate the company in pioneering the BioGenome journey in Indonesia.
Nusantics is a technology company that focuses on applying advancements in genomics and microbiome research to fulfill consumer needs of a healthy yet sustainable lifestyle.
The company was founded in 2019 by Sharlini Eriza Putri, Vincent Kurniawan, and Revata Utama. Sharlini is a chemical, mechanical and sustainable energy engineer who graduated from ITB and Imperial College London, while Vincent got his engineering degree from CSPU-Pomona, USA. Revata is an experienced scientist in genomics technology that graduated from NUS, Singapore. All of them have combined experiences in manufacturing, FMCG, clean energy, aerospace, biotechnology industries, both overseas and locally. These diverse experiences and backgrounds have one thing in common: the realization that understanding life science, in regard to microbiome, is one of the major factors to providing sustainable solutions. This is what convinces them to push the limit and explore the application of microbiome in everyday life.
Microbiome is a complex ecosystem of microorganisms such as bacteria, viruses, and fungi that live on and inside every human and every living thing on earth. It is instrumental to the immune system and each person has a unique microbiome profile. Nusantics believes that understanding their own microbiome profile is essential in helping consumers pick the necessary products that fit their bodily needs and also are more sustainable.
Nusantics express their clear vision on how important the microbiomes are and they are realistic that a paradigm shift in the market is needed. Therefore, as the first local startup that analyzes microbiome profiles, the company will begin to introduce its technology to the Indonesian lifestyle market by applying them for human skin – a living ecosystem of billions of microbiomes.
Skincare has become a part of today’s lifestyle, making up a huge market for beauty products and treatment care in Indonesia. Based on the Beauty Market Survey (BMS) from Nielsen and EuroMonitor, Indonesia’s beauty market size reached IDR 36 trillion in 2018 with skincare products contributing around 31.7%.
Based on the latest multiple genomic research, healthy skin can be achieved when the skin has a diverse and balanced microbiome. However, the lack of understanding of their microbiome balance makes consumers struggle to find compatible skin products that meet their unique needs. Additionally, with the market’s increasing demand on conscious lifestyle and education, Nusantics aims to lead a bold movement on how the microbiome affects their everyday beauty decisions.
Sharlini Eriza Putri, Co-founder and CEO of Nusantics, explained that consumers could easily avoid such problems by understanding the microbiome’s condition in their skin and what enjoyable-clean offerings suit them most. These are the solutions that Nusantics aims to educate and provide.
“Advancement in deep tech has enabled us to realize that all lives on earth are interdependent on the microbiome. They are a crucial factor behind a healthy ecosystem, yet are also a very critical factor behind global pandemics. Nusantics believe that understanding their genome is utterly important, and this will be the key to a sustainable future for this earth,” said Sharlini.
Additionally, Vincent Kurniawan, Co-founder, and COO of Nusantics, elaborates on Nusantics staying true to one of its core principles of “balanced ecosystem”, where true sustainability can only be achieved by collaborations with as many stakeholders as possible by offering values that will be mutually enjoyed. “We strive to not only usher Nusantics in a direction that creates positive contributions to consumers, but also partners and other stakeholders alike.”
Revata Utama, Co-founder and CTO of Nusantics, believes that genomics technology and further understanding of microbiome could solve issues wider than just skin problems, but also other aspects of life. “I experienced first-hand how this technology can help to solve issues that we currently face in the world. That’s why we believe in having the best researcher locally and from overseas as well as deploying the state-of-the-art genomics tools to be used in-house as we aim to solve bigger issues in the future.”
Melisa Irene, Partner of East Ventures, said, “The world is changing as we all have realized our holistic quality of health and well-being are paramount. If Indonesia could have an affordable, accessible, and accurate quality of health assessment for anyone, it will improve the overall quality of our nation. When we met Shar, Vincent, and Revata, we had an aligned mission, and the team possess the right traits, mindset, and set of capabilities in bringing a positive impact of microbiome to the mass. We are very excited.”