Investment Notes: Ledgerowl

Since our Investible office expanded its footprint to Singapore in 2018, we’ve widened the scope of our vision to go global with a focus on the blossoming Southeast Asian market. As our team in the region has grown, we’ve been fortunate to meet companies that are trailblazing the future of technology in the region.

Today, we’re proud to unveil our investment in one of these ambitious companies, Ledgerowl, founded by Rey Kamal and Adrian Yasin. We led this pre-seed round alongside Indonesian VC firm Init6, founded by Achmad Zaky, the former founder of Bukalapak.

Side hustle turned global problem solver

Ledgerowl began as a side hustle by co-founder and CEO Rey Kamal in 2019. As the CFO of Duitku Payment Gateways, Rey saw how inefficient and expensive financial reporting was for SMEs, with many small business owners in Jakarta failing to file their accounting reports and tax returns despite the regulatory requirements. Existing accounting services are expensive and the available platforms such as Xero, Quickbooks and Jurnal were merely tools that required manual bookkeepers.

Drawing on his experience, Rey set out to create the all-in-one AI-powered financial solution for SMEs in Indonesia.

Ledgerowl is building what they call an “outcome-based” accounting platform for SMEs. Indonesian business owners want the price of SaaS tools, with the capabilities of senior accountants. To build a platform that solves this problem, the team worked backward from the need.

The Indonesia-based company simplifies the entire accounting process in a more affordable and efficient way, producing accurate financial reports for businesses. PEVITA, their bookkeeping automation chatbot, standardises the journey for each business owner through a hassle-free, ”drag-and-drop” of documents such as bank statements, invoices and receipts.

The technology behind PEVITA mimics an experienced senior accountant; processing collected data, sending queries on unmatched data points, and drafting Xero-formatted financial statements for Ledgerowl’s accountants to review with the business owners. This reduces the amount of time required for monthly bookkeeping, in turn dropping the cost of accounting for business owners.

Large ambitions and broad perspectives

It didn’t take long to see the co-founders’ skillsets compliment each other well. Both Adrian and Rey are multiple-time founders with international experience, with Rey having founded Craga Games, and Adrian having built a proptech company, Ruma.id, and a software development house, Automata.

The founder pair grew up in Sydney, learning accounting, economics, business management and IT at some of Australia’s top universities. After graduating they worked for companies like Lockwood & Ward, Bray & Associates, Lendlease Australia, and Canon Australia before making the leap to entrepreneurship. Looking for new adventures, the founding team decided to move away from the comfort of Sydney into the bustling city of Jakarta to chase their dreams of launching Ledgerowl.

Since launching Ledgerowl in 2020, the company has onboarded over 60 customers and grown 700% with strong topline revenue, a testament to the founders’ abilities to grow the business and build the technology needed.

Ledgerowl is well-positioned to redefine the future of SME accounting in Indonesia. The current market for SMEs, sole proprietors and accountants is enormous, and competition is very limited, giving the team a unique opportunity to rapidly expand.

We’re excited to back Ledgerowl and can’t wait to see where they take this fantastic business opportunity into the future.