Japan’s Venture Republic invests in price comparison site Telunjuk, its first deal in Indonesia

Indonesia-based price comparison site Telunjuk has landed an undisclosed round of funding from Japan-based Venture Republic, which marks the firms’s first deal in Indonesia.

The investment is the latest in a series of e-commerce funding deals in Indonesia in recent times, which have included C2C marketplace Tokopedia’s latest round announced last week and GREE and Sony’s investment in price comparison startup PriceArea.

As Daily Social explains, Telunjuk was founded in 2011 and initially focused on comparing the price of consumer electronics — such as phones and laptops — as well as airline tickets across the Web in Indonesia.

Today, however, it includes hotels, clothing, home appliances and more as part of its goal of “helping Indonesian consumers to find the best products from the best online shops” — to use Telunjuk CMO Drata Rahiesa’s words.

Rahiesa tells TNW that the service receives around 500,000 monthly visitors, and lists around 500,000 physical products — which obviously excluding hotels and flight offers. For now, the site is focused on Indonesia but he says that it will look to expand across Southeast Asia in the next couple of years: “Let’s do it step by step,” he adds.

The deal is Venture Republic’s first in Indonesia. CEO Kei Shibata says he is confident that the experience gained from investments in three vertical search services in its native Japan — Coneco.net, Travel.jp, and Hotel.jp — will help Telunjuk realize its potential in Indonesia:

This is our first investment in Indonesia. We’ve known Redya and Drata as amazing founders and complete each other. With minimal cost, both founders were able to achieve a lot. With our experience in the shopping search engine industry, we’re very excited to support them towards success.

Indonesia’s e-commerce space was expected to net $266 million (IDR2.5 trillion) in transactions last year. However, the country is primed for growth, and an Ideosource report predicts that will nearly triple over the coming years, to reach $736 million during 2014.

Headline image via 501K / Flickr