Pintarnya, an Indonesian jobs platform that not only matches people with full-time and side-gig work but also provides financial services, has raised US$16.7 million in Series A funding.
The round was led by Square Peg, with support from existing investors Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India and East Ventures.
Pintarnya was founded in 2022 by Ghirish Pokardas, Nelly Nurmalasari, and Henry Hendrawan to address two major problems many Indonesians face every day: finding steady income and accessing safe loans.
“Traditionally, mass workers in Indonesia find jobs offline through job fairs or word of mouth, with employers buried in paper applications and candidates rarely hearing back. For borrowing, their options are often limited to family/friend or predatory lenders with harsh collection practices,” Henry Hendrawan, co-founder of Pintarnya, told TechCrunch. “We digitize job matching with AI to make hiring faster and we provide workers with safer, healthier lending options — designed around what they can reasonably afford, rather than pushing them deeper into debt.”
About 59% of Indonesia’s 150 million workers are in the informal sector. This makes it hard for them to get access to formal financial services because they don’t have steady, verifiable income or official job documents.
To solve this, Pintarnya partners with asset-backed lenders to provide secured loans, where workers can use gold, electronics, or vehicles as collateral, said cofounder Henry Hendrawan.
Since raising its seed funding in 2022, the platform has grown to serve over 10 million job seekers and 40,000 employers across Indonesia. Its revenue has jumped nearly five times year-over-year, and the company expects to break even by the end of this year, Hendrawan noted.
Most Pintarnya users are 21 to 40 years old and have a high school education or diploma below university level. The startup plans to keep focusing on this underserved group of blue-collar and informal workers, which makes up a large share of Indonesia’s workforce.
“Through the journey of building employment services, we discovered that our users needed more than just jobs — they needed access to financial services that traditional banks couldn’t provide,” said Hendrawan. “We digitize job matching with AI to make hiring faster and we provide workers with safer, healthier lending options — designed around what they can reasonably afford, rather than pushing them deeper into debt.”
Indonesia already has job platforms like JobStreet, Kalibrr, and Glints, but these mostly focus on white-collar jobs, which make up only a small part of the workforce, said Henry Hendrawan.
Pintarnya, on the other hand, is built for blue-collar workers. It offers features like quick-apply for walk-in interviews, low-cost online training, in-app side-income opportunities, and easy access to financial services such as loans.
The same issue exists in Indonesia’s fintech sector, which mainly serves white-collar or upper-middle-class customers. Traditional credit scoring systems, which look at stable income and bank records, often exclude blue-collar workers, leaving them without access to many fintech services, Hendrawan added.
When asked about which fintech services are most in demand, Hendrawan mentioned, “Given their employment status, lending is the most in-demand financial service for Pintarnya’s users today. We are planning to ‘graduate’ them to micro-savings and investments down the road through innovative products with our partners.”
With the new funding, Pintarnya plans to improve its platform technology and expand its financial services by building more partnerships. Since most workers in Indonesia are in the blue-collar and informal sectors, the founders believe there is huge room for growth in the local market.
They also said that, with their experience running businesses across Southeast Asia, they may look at expanding regionally in the future when the timing is right.
“Our vision is for Pintarnya to be the everyday companion that empowers Indonesians to not only make ends meet today, but also plan, grow, and upgrade their lives tomorrow … In five years, we see Pintarnya as the go-to super app for Indonesia’s workers, not just for earning income, but as a trusted partner throughout their life journey,” Hendrawan said. “We want to be the first stop when someone is looking for work, a place that helps them upgrade their skills, and a reliable guide as they make financial decisions.”
Read more- Queensland biotech Lucia Bio raises AU$3 million seed round
