01Fintech Invests in Indonesian Digital Wallet DANA as It Deepens Financial Services Push

01F Group, through its growth-stage fintech private equity arm 01Fintech, has invested in DANA, the Indonesian digital wallet and financial platform with about 200 Mn accounts. The platform plans to use the funding to deepen the financial services it offers around its payments network.

Neither disclosed the investment size or terms. However, they said the partnership would use DANA to connect micro, small and medium-sized enterprises with lending and working-capital providers, expanding access to micro-insurance, digital savings and wealth products and developing more efficient cross-border payment services for Indonesian consumers and merchants.

The investment gives DANA a specialist fintech backer at a point when the opportunity is shifting from adding wallet users to getting more financial activity from an already large network.

DANA reported about 200 Mn accounts and 1.2 Mn registered MSMEs in its 2024 sustainability disclosures. About 40% of those merchants were based in rural or non-metropolitan areas, giving the platform a sizeable distribution base among smaller businesses which often struggle to access conventional financing and other financial products.

DANA is operated as a digital financial platform in Indonesia, with payments at the centre of its business. But the new partnership points to a broader ecosystem model in which DANA does not necessarily provide every financial product. Users and merchants can be connected with regulated providers of credit, insurance, savings and other services.

That distinction is particularly relevant for small businesses. 01Fintech already has direct exposure to SME lending through Validus, the Southeast Asian financing platform in which it invested $20 Mn in 2023. Validus was operating across Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam at the time and had disbursed more than $3 Bn to small businesses.

The PE firm also has exposure to cross-border payments through Singapore-headquartered Thunes, which counts 01Fintech among its investors and operates global infrastructure for moving money between businesses, banks, wallets and other payment networks.

Those investments overlap closely with the areas DANA and 01Fintech have identified for their partnership, although neither company has said that Validus or Thunes will directly provide services through DANA.

DANA already participates in Indonesia’s QRIS Cross-Border payment network. Bank Indonesia lists it among Indonesian payment service providers that can support transactions through linked systems in markets including Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.

The relationship with 01Fintech also goes beyond the investor’s current portfolio.

Its founder and managing partner Kenny Man previously built Ant Group’s international investment team. 01Fintech says Man invested in or established partnerships with more than 30 fintech companies while at Ant, including DANA in Indonesia, GCash in the Philippines, Paytm in India, Touch ’n Go in Malaysia, KakaoPay in South Korea and more.

It means the DANA investment brings Man back to a company he encountered during an earlier phase of Southeast Asia’s digital wallet expansion. But this time, it will be through a PE firm focussed on helping growth-stage fintech companies scale.

A second connection will be through Indonesian conglomerate Sinar Mas.

Sinar Mas Financial Services invested in 01Fintech and entered a strategic partnership with the PE firm in 2023, partly to strengthen its fintech investments and digital operations in Indonesia.

Separately, Sinar Mas-linked Dian Swastatika Sentosa invested $200 Mn in DANA’s then-parent company in 2022.

The overlap gives 01Fintech more familiarity with DANA’s shareholder ecosystem than a financial investor arriving cold. It already has a relationship with Sinar Mas. Its founder has previously worked with DANA through Ant, and its portfolio already includes businesses operating in SME finance and cross-border payments.

For DANA, the investment comes after years spent building scale in one of Southeast Asia’s largest consumer markets. The challenge now is how effectively it can use that distribution to deepen relationships with users and small businesses through products that sit around the wallet, without building or taking balance-sheet risk on every service.

01Fintech is betting on that next phase. The size of its investment remains undisclosed, but its strategic relevance is clearer. DANA already has the users and merchants, while its new PE backer brings experience and relationships in some of the financial services the Indonesian platform wants to expand into.