Sonita Lontoh, co-founder of the Silicon Valley Asia Technology Alliance.
“Our vision is a world where entrepreneurs, innovators, and professionals in Silicon Valley and Indonesia can easily connect with one another,” explains Sonita Lontoh, co-founder of the Silicon Valley Asia Technology Alliance (SVA Technology Alliance), a newly created non-profit organization (NPO) looking to bridge the tech industries of Northern California and Indonesia, two ecosystems that have long been considered worlds apart.
Lontoh’s background, which spans both the US tech startup scene and its corporate world, makes her an authority in the field of global innovations and startup ecosystems. An Indonesian native, Lontoh moved to the US 20 years ago to pursue a career in green technology and smart energy. She’s served as an executive at several Silicon Valley-backed startups, and is currently the head of global corporate marketing for Trilliant, a smart communications grid for the energy industry, which has General Electric and the Zurich-based ABB automation and robotics firm as strategic investors, among others.
She is a mentor and committee member for TechWomen, a US government program created by Hillary Clinton, and has written articles for or appeared in prominent media like The New York Times, Forbes, Bloomberg Business Week, The Huffington Post, and Fortune.
Bridging the ecosystems
The SVA Technology Alliance serves as a source of knowledge and communication for American tech players who are interested in the Indonesian market and vice versa. Its main goal is to stimulate growth in the archipelago’s tech startup ecosystem by granting it access to the right mentors and investors from Silicon Valley.
Lontoh says that the SVA Technology Alliance, which officially launches at the end of October, will not provide funding or infrastructure for entrepreneurs. Instead, she adds that her newly-established NPO will furnish Indonesian entrepreneurs with opportunities to enter Silicon Valley boot camps, which will hopefully enable them to adopt the mindset and best practices of the world’s leading tech ecosystem and bring them back to Jakarta.
The idea for a formal NPO initiative came from her past experiences when Indonesian government officials and business leaders would come to Silicon Valley and ask her to connect them with local venture capital firms, incubators, and accelerators.
Alongside Lontoh, SVA Technology Alliance co-founders include Felice Beckman of the Indonesia Diaspora Business Council, Shinta Dhanuwardoyo of Bubu, and Alex Beckman, founder and CEO of GameOn Technology.
See: How to bring more foreign money to Indonesian startups
Indonesia is a work in progress
Lontoh admits that she is not an expert on Indonesia’s startup scene, as she’s never actually worked in Jakarta. But from her understanding, she does not believe many startups in Indonesia are quite ready for investment tickets upward of US$5 million. She explains:
Based on several conversations I have had with others, it seems the majority of Indonesian startups are not yet quite ready for that kind of investment. Having said that, I read recently in one of your articles that an Indonesian startup, Tokopedia, just received $100 million funding from Softbank and Sequoia. I think this is really great news because it can serve as a catalyst for other leading Silicon Valley venture capital firms to start evaluating and investing in Indonesian startups.
On the global stage, Lontoh thinks Indonesia is “still a sleeping giant.” She claims elite investors know it’s a country with a lot of potential, but that the archipelago still has a long way to go if it wants to compete with China or India.
“The market is still developing,” explains Lontoh. “Also, several VCs have told me that in general, they like to invest in companies that they can visit often (geographical proximity matters) and the truth is there are still a lot of opportunities to invest in excellent Silicon Valley startups, so Silicon Valley VCs are not desperate to look for growth elsewhere. Indonesia has a lot of potential, but still much work remains to be done.”
Lontoh claims Indonesia needs to boost its competitiveness and upgrade its infrastructure. She says local laws also need to be more transparent and consistent to attract the big fish investors. “No investors will go to a country where the rule of law is haphazard,” explains Lontoh. “However, I have high hopes that some of these can be achieved during the administration of the new Indonesian President, Joko Widodo.”
Lontoh (middle-left) at the Women Powering Tech Summit.
What Indonesia can learn from SV
According to Lontoh, Indonesia needs to create a stronger ecosystem of mentors, advisors, and financiers, as well as see more successful exit scenarios.
Additionally, she highlights the importance of startups grabbing as much market share as possible, working off the thesis that if a company can’t become the number one or number two market leader, perhaps they shouldn’t enter a particular industry to begin with. Discussing key lessons local entrepreneurs can absorb from their American counterparts, Lontoh adds:
On the one hand, many local investors do not understand or have the risk/return profiles of the Silicon Valley VC model. On the other hand, Silicon Valley VC firms may not be interested to invest in Indonesia because it is a market that they do not yet know well [...] Finally, a successful ecosystem requires a strong culture of risk-taking and entrepreneurialism, where failures are seen as a badge of honor [...] Indonesians should embrace this mindset.
This organization gives Indonesia a chance to catch up with Silicon Valley
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