Shivom Sinha, CEO and co-founder of Bunker
The promise of knowledge analytics applied sciences is that they’ll unlock perception and worth hiding in plain sight. And for the finance perform in a enterprise, what may very well be plainer than the 1000’s of rows of transactions sitting of their common ledgers? Enter Bunker, a Singapore-based analytics start-up, which is at present saying the completion of a £5 million seed funding spherical because it seeks to speed up development.
The inspiration for Bunker got here out of the Covid-19 disaster, explains co-founder and CEO Shivom Sinha. “I used to be working in finance at a logistics enterprise, and we would have liked to fully reconfigure our technique when the pandemic hit,” he remembers. “However doing that was actually difficult as a result of digging deep into our monetary knowledge was such a painful course of.”
That may sound shocking – if any perform ought to be on high of the corporate’s numbers, then finance would certainly be it. However Sinha factors out that for contemporary enterprises, the granular element of their monetary efficiency and preparations is obscured in 1000’s of entries on ledgers of transactional knowledge – actually drilling down into the information requires painstaking guide work. “It may be a gruelling course of and it is extremely simple to lose sight of the story,” he says.
Bunker’s resolution is a cloud-based software program utility that plugs into the purchasers’ current monetary programs and enterprise useful resource planning platforms. It was constructed with the assistance of co-founder Jibrilia Alamsjah, the CEO of Proyek Beta, which Bunker acquired because it launched.
As soon as the app is up and working, it interrogates the enterprise’s monetary knowledge with a purpose to create dashboards and stories in order that strategic leaders can actually perceive what’s occurring at a transactional degree. They will additionally make bespoke requests for evaluation of a selected subject or ache level – for instance, one consumer used the software program to establish round 50 distributors at the moment requiring cost inside 30 days; it was then capable of contact every consumer and negotiate extensions to 60 days, with a purpose to assist cashflow.
“Our aim is to exploit each ounce of knowledge in your system,” Sinha provides. “We wish to guarantee that no stone will get left unturned.” Sometimes, Bunker’s purchasers establish value financial savings of not less than 10% of working expenditure as soon as they begin utilizing the software program, he suggests.
That’s fairly a declare, however Bunker has been capable of win purchasers shortly. The corporate started pitching the software program to medium-sized enterprises throughout the Asia Pacific area within the third quarter of final yr and has to date signed up round 40 prospects.
The attract, Sinha says, is that Bunker helps companies bridge a abilities hole. “Finance leaders don’t essentially perceive the basics of accounting, whereas accountants usually don’t perceive the best way to use these numbers to inform the story of the enterprise,” he says. “As well as, you want fairly technical knowledge engineering experience with a purpose to construct a software program resolution that may assist.”
A easy consumer expertise is important for buyer traction, Sinha believes. Bunker says its programs could be onboarded in a matter of days and that enterprise leaders can study to make use of it in a couple of minutes. That’s vital because the CEO and CFO are usually the first customers of the software program when it first deploys, he says.
Traders have taken an curiosity within the enterprise since its early days, offering pre-seed capital to assist it get off the bottom. This newest spherical of seed funding entails buyers together with Alpha JWC, January Capital, Northstar Group, GFC, Cash Ahead and plenty of angels.
Eko Kurniadi, a companion at Alpha JWC, says the platform can have explicit resonance for companies making an attempt to deal with financial volatility and upheaval, given ongoing macro uncertainties.
“Now could be the time to give attention to a bottom-up strategy and for companies to have full visibility and management over their funds,” Kurniadi says. “Bunker can be a pivotal instrument for companies to make these higher and knowledgeable choices. The platform offers complete monetary snapshots effortlessly in order that the finance crew can commit their time to the place their experience is required as an alternative of spending it on mundane and time-consuming duties.”
The fundraising ought to enable Bunker to develop a fully-fledged go-to-market crew, with Sinha initially centered on concentrating on companies throughout the South-East Asia area. “This can be a borderless product,” he factors out, with enlargement to different worldwide markets a part of the medium to longer-term plan.
Among the cash raised will even assist additional product growth, with Bunker eager so as to add sophistication to its software program with a purpose to goal very massive enterprises in addition to the medium-sized companies that at the moment account for almost all of purchasers.
