SCOOP, a popular digital newsstand in Indonesia, raises S$1M

Apps Foundry, an Indonesian mobile development company headquartered in Singapore, announced on 22nd December that they have raised S$1M (US$0.77M) from Gobi Partners and Mitsui Global Investment to further develop SCOOP, their flagship newsstand app.

SCOOP, which was launched in Indonesia last year, has over 800 magazines, tabloids, and books in its stable.

70 percent of Indonesian magazines have their digital editions on the app, which has so far been downloaded over 120,000 times, making it one of the top ten grossing iPad apps in Indonesia. SCOOP is also available for the iPhone.

Gobi Partners is a venture capital firm headquartered in Shanghai focusing on early stage digital media and technology startups. While it invests primarily in Chinese companies, it has also funded a couple of Singapore-based ones, most notably games developer Time Voyager and media company Xinya.

Mitsui Global Investment is a Tokyo-based investment firm that funds startups mainly from US, China, and Japan in the areas of heathcare, IT, F&B, and retail.

The involvement of these two VC firms indicate Apps Foundry’s interest to develop SCOOP for the Chinese and Japanese markets.

“With their extensive knowledge in their home countries, we will be able to learn from the experience in these other markets and leverage on their networks,” said Willson Cuaca, CEO of Apps Foundry. “We will use the fund to bring in more regional publishers, improve our infrastructure and expand our product range.”

Previous Apps Foundry investors include East Ventures, a Singapore and Indonesia-based VC firm, and Nic Lim, co-founder of Catcha.com, a Malaysian online media company.

SCOOP faces stiff competition from other newsstand apps out in the market.

One example is Zinio, which has over 850 titles available for download. They recently raised around US$20M in funding. Internet giants like Amazon, Apple, Google, and Yahoo also have their own newsstand apps.

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