Ajaib's bet on first-time investors grew 7M users and a $270M SBI round

A Jakarta online brokerage where first-time investors open an account in minutes and buy stocks, mutual funds and crypto from one lot, with no minimum deposit and low fees on a mobile app.

That Indonesians priced out by minimum deposits would invest when opening an account and buying one lot took minutes on a phone.

More than $500M total, including a $65M Series A extension led by Ribbit Capital (March 2021, Series A total $90M), a $153M Series B that gave Ajaib unicorn status in 2021, and a $270M strategic investment from SBI Holdings announced August 28, 2026 - about Rp 4.8 trillion - for roughly a 20% stake implying a $1.35B valuation.

Anderson Sumarli and Yada Piyajomkwan - Stanford MBA classmates - founded Ajaib in Jakarta in 2019 as a Robinhood-style app with no minimum deposit, built for millennial and Gen Z investors. At the time fewer than 1% of Indonesians owned stocks, and brokerages served a small, established clientele.

Ajaib's low-fee trading app for stocks and mutual funds spread quickly among first-time investors: TechCrunch reported in March 2021 that it ran Indonesia's fourth-largest stock brokerage by number of trades as it closed a $65M Series A extension led by Ribbit Capital, bringing the Series A to $90M with Y Combinator Continuity, ICONIQ, Bangkok Bank and returning investors joining. A $153M Series B in 2021 took it past unicorn valuation. By August 2026, when SBI Holdings announced a $270M strategic investment - about Rp 4.8 trillion, reported as Indonesia's largest tech round since 2022 - Ajaib said it served more than seven million users, most of them first-time investors, spread into second- and third-tier cities, and planned to allocate the funds to expand across Southeast Asia.

Scaling: a seven-million-user retail brokerage with SBI Holdings as a roughly 20% strategic shareholder, total funding past $500M, and the round earmarked for regional expansion across Southeast Asia.

The wedge was real exclusion: brokerages demanded minimums and paperwork, so Ajaib let people open an account and buy from one lot in minutes on a phone.

Education rode along with trading: instead of preaching financial literacy separately, the app taught first-time users inside the product as they bought stocks, mutual funds and later crypto.

Investor alignment followed product-market fit: Ribbit Capital, the Robinhood backer, led the Series A extension, and global funds including DST Global joined as Ajaib scaled.

Seven million users, mostly beginners, made Ajaib the strategic asset SBI wanted for Southeast Asia: the Japanese group paid $270M for roughly a 20% stake.

When the barrier is minimums and literacy, cut the minimum and educate inside the app: one-lot trades turned a country of under 1% stock ownership into a 7M-user market.

As of September 2, 2026, Ajaib is scaling: SBI Holdings' $270M investment, announced August 28, 2026, was reported as Indonesia's largest tech round since 2022, put total funding past $500M and implied a valuation near $1.35B on SBI's roughly 20% stake. Ajaib said the funds would expand its business across Southeast Asia while keeping the largest share invested in Indonesia. It serves more than seven million users, most of them first-time investors, and faces local rivals such as Bibit and Pluang, which also raised during the same 2021 wave of Indonesian retail-investing apps.