ENG
IDN 
Jakarta, Indonesia, April 15, 2025 – Populix, an Indonesian tech-based research company, today announced it has secured USD 4.3 million in the first close of its Series B funding round. The investment was led by MSW V Asia Fund X, with participation from existing investors Intudo Ventures, Altos Ventures, and Acrew Capital.
This is an achievement not only for Populix but also for Indonesian startups; especially amidst the weak investment climate due to the tech winter in the past few years and the recent plunge in the IHSG price. Throughout 2024, the Data Vantage report by DealStreetAsia noted that total funding entering Indonesia had decreased by 34% YoY, and investment value had fallen by around 66% or IDR 7.3 trillion. The decline in Indonesia was the deepest in Southeast Asia. The funding affirms Populix’s position amidst the uncertain investment climate.
Dr. Timothy Astandu, Co-Founder and CEO of Populix, said, “We are grateful for the trust from our investors to re-invest in Populix, even in the current investment climate. This funding encourages us to continue reinforcing our business fundamentals by developing services and leveraging technology to innovate in the future. In addition, Populix also aspires to expand its market to Southeast Asia based on strong demand from current clients.”
Since closing the Series A round in 2022, Populix has continued expanding public access to research. In 2023, Populix launched Policy & Society Research service, to help organizations and governments analyze public sentiment, policy impacts, and economic and social trends. Meanwhile, on the technology side, Populix developed NeXa, an AI-based research assistant that can help guide users in conducting research, starting from designing and creating questionnaires, accessing targeted respondent groups, to drawing conclusions.
In the last year, the total projects carried out by Populix grew two-fold, with 65% of them coming from recurring clients. Populix has also expanded client base industries to telecommunications and government sectors, highlighting the company’s growing footprint in the research industry. These underline the level of client trust in Populix’s various innovations, to ensure data and insights that are relevant to their businesses and institutions.
Through the Series B funding received today, Populix is committed to developing and training its AI models to automate research processes and generate faster and more reliable insights. Populix is also working on AI machine learning to develop synthetic respondents, artificial personas that mimic human responses which enable faster data collection. The two developments are prioritized to help industry players and policymakers maximize AI adoption in their research.
Jeffrey Seah, Founder and General Partner of MSW Ventures, explained that in the past decade, “Market Research” has steadily moved from “primary analysis of collected sampling data” to “real-time intelligence sensing from aggregated audiences” – driven by a triumvirate of factors, including 1) Gentrified perception of privacy after two decades of social media exploitation, 2) Tribal & community-based self-referencing negating the need for stratified research sampling parameters, and 3) The adoption of AI agents and the emergence of synthetic audiences adopted from the 5XFAANGs custom audience promulgations.
As a result, informed decision-making has been elevated to a higher priority for businesses and organizations within and entering the Asia Pacific markets and their associated diaspora populations. Businesses demand speed, veracity and projected intent in their market intelligence-to-decision frameworks. First mover responses to market shifts are critical defensible competitive edges as market retaliation cycles shorten.
“We’ve known Populix since its pre-Series A stage and have followed its journey closely. We’ve witnessed how the company is democratizing access to high-quality insights through its proprietary data pipelines and expansive network. By closing the decision lag between insight and action, Populix fuses the depth of traditional research with the immediacy of synthetic data and agentic AI—delivering strategic advantages with unprecedented speed, accuracy, and actionability. This enables the company to scale its offering across the region and drive the next wave of innovation in the market research sector,” added Jeffrey.
Patrick Yip, Founding Partner Intudo Ventures, added, “As one of Populix’s earliest investors, we’ve had the privilege of seeing the company grow since leading their Pre-A rounds. Participating in this Series B round alongside our trusted fellow investors reflects our continued belief in Populix’s vision and execution capabilities. Even with recent market challenges, Populix has kept growing and proving its value through reliable, data-driven insights that businesses rely on. With new products in the works, we’re confident Populix will continue to be a leading consumer insights platform in Indonesia and the region.”
Richard Song, Partner at Altos Ventures, said, “At Altos Ventures, we are committed to partnering with visionary leaders who demonstrate an ownership mentality and a clear vision for the future. Populix exemplifies these qualities by leveraging technology to revolutionize consumer insights in Indonesia. We are excited to support their journey as they empower businesses with real-time, accurate data to make informed decisions.”
Kerry Whorton Cooper, Venture Advisor, Acrew Capital, explained, “Al is already severely disrupting the data and insights space. As shown by the stickiness and loyalty of their enterprise clients, Populix is very well positioned to take advantage of the changing landscape through innovative products and a deep understanding of client needs.”
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About Populix
Populix is a technology-based research company that connects businesses, institutions, and individuals with quality, diverse, and targeted respondents throughout Indonesia. With a data-driven approach and the support of the latest technology, Populix provides end-to-end research solutions—from planning, data collection, analysis, to reporting—for market research needs as well as public and social policy studies. In addition to custom research services, Populix has also developed an online self-survey platform to help users access insights quickly and efficiently. To download the latest studies from Populix, please visit info.populix.co.
For more information, kindly contact:
| Patricia Saputra Marketing & PR Sr. Manager 0812 9106 8322 patricia.s@populix.co | Admin Support Populix 0812 2175 5951 support@populix.co info.populix.co |
About MSW Ventures
MSW Ventures supports Asia Fund X (AFX), a successor fund to Asia Fund II (AFII), in searching for exceptional growth models and founders with the X factor within the transformative Digital Economy of Southeast Asia. We value bold, mainstream-oriented and mature-minded founders whose startups exhibit sustainable growth, quality revenue and validated market-priced product-market fit. Once we invest, we pull out all stops to support our portfolio companies on their go-to-market journey, leveraging our well-established network of industry connections and intimate knowledge of the market geographies to help founders navigate the ever-changing terrains of their industries. Learn more at mettlesaltwealth.com.
About Intudo Ventures
Intudo is an investment firm with operations in Indonesia and Silicon Valley dedicated to: (1) bringing the world to Indonesia and Indonesia to the world; and (2) bringing the world to Silicon Valley and bringing Silicon Valley to the world, with ~US$400 million in total assets under management. Intudo’s investors include leading institutions and family offices (including 30+ Forbes-listed billionaires and their affiliated businesses) spanning the United States, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. Through Intudo Ventures, Intudo leverages a concentrated portfolio strategy to invest in Indonesian homegrown tech and tech-enabled companies namely Xendit, Pintu, Pinhome, Jago, Populix and more. Intudo’s founding team has been venture investing in Silicon Valley for ~30 years, having been early venture investors in PayPal, Palantir Technologies, Affirm, Armada, Epirus, and Gecko Robotics.
For more information, please visit https://intudovc.com/
About Altos Ventures
Founded in 1996, Altos Ventures is a venture capital firm headquartered in Burlingame, California. The firm partners with early-stage technology companies with the goal of building sustainable, long-lasting businesses over decades. Altos Ventures is registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as a Registered Investment Adviser (RIA) and takes a flexible, long-term, and focused investment approach. The firm is committed to supporting companies throughout their entire life cycle. Altos maintains offices in Burlingame, California and Seoul, South Korea, and has invested in a diverse range of companies across the United States, Korea, and other global markets.
For more info, go to www.altos.vc
About Acrew Capital
Acrew Capital is a venture firm that engages in long-term partnerships with world-class teams uniquely suited to solving big, challenging problems. We believe the best investment decisions are driven by a combination of depth of conviction and diversity of perspective, and that investment should be tailored to the specific needs of each founding team. Acrew investment themes include Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Modernized, Financial Services Rebuilt, Work Reimagined, Data Interconnected, and Community Activated/Consumer. The Acrew founding team previously worked together at Aspect Ventures. The investing team combines experience from Accel, Brown University, Google, Greycroft, Imperva, StubHub, and Yodlee. Investments by the Acrew team include At-Bay Insurance, Cato Networks, Chime, Divvy Payments, Exabeam, Finix, Pie Insurance, and HotelTonight/AirBnB. Collectively, the Acrew investing team’s track record includes 10 IPOs, over 25 successful acquisitions and over 150 rounds of follow-on capital raise, resulting in over $100 billion in market value created and over $1B in returns to our investors.
For more information, visit www.acrewcapital.com.