Kartuku

Established in 2001, Kartuku, officially PT Multi Adiprakarsa Manunggal, began as a provider of Electronic Data Capture (EDC) machines in Indonesia. A significant transformation occurred in 2006 when Niki Luhur took the helm as CEO, pivoting the company's business model from a hardware supplier to an end-to-end payment solutions provider. This strategic shift focused on building a robust, cloud-based payment infrastructure to address the challenges of transaction processing and financial access in the Indonesian market.

Niki Luhur, a graduate of Tufts University, identified the critical need for a reliable payment acceptance infrastructure to support the growth of electronic transactions. His leadership drove Kartuku to become a leading independent Third-Party Processor (TPP) and Payment Service Provider (PSP). The company's journey includes a Series A funding round of $10M in February 2012 from Northstar Group. In 2015, Thomas Husted, a seasoned finance professional with experience at Citigroup and Bank Danamon, joined as CFO and became CEO a year later, bringing extensive financial expertise to the firm. Hailing from a background that includes co-founding Zalora Indonesia and a stint at McKinsey & Company, Nadiem Makarim also served as Chief Innovation Officer at Kartuku before focusing on Gojek.

Kartuku's core business revolves around providing comprehensive payment solutions for its clients, primarily enterprise retailers. The company operated a vast network of over 150,000 point-of-sale (POS) devices and served nearly all of the top 100 enterprise retailers in Indonesia, including major names like McDonalds, Carrefour, and Garuda Indonesia. Its business model centered on offering a Unified Payment Platform that functioned as Platform as a Service, Infrastructure as a Service, and Software as a Service, enabling merchants to process various transactions such as retail payments, bill payments, and fund transfers through a single, secure system. This platform integrated with nine acquiring banks, issuing banks, and e-money providers, also offering value-added services like promotions and vouchers.

A pivotal moment in Kartuku's history was its acquisition by Gojek (now GoTo) on December 14, 2017. This was part of Gojek's strategic move to bolster its digital wallet, Go-Pay, by acquiring Kartuku alongside Midtrans and Mapan, collectively processing nearly US$5 billion in transactions at the time. The acquisition integrated Kartuku's extensive offline payment network with Gojek's burgeoning ecosystem, aiming to create a ubiquitous offline payment system for Go-Pay and further Indonesia's transition to a cashless society. Post-acquisition, Thomas Husted transitioned to become the CFO of Gojek, playing a critical role in the company's subsequent merger with Tokopedia to form GoTo.

Keywords: payment solutions, fintech, offline payments, point-of-sale, POS, Third Party Processor, TPP, Payment Service Provider, PSP, electronic transactions, EDC, payment gateway, merchant services, financial infrastructure, cashless society, Go-Pay, Gojek, end-to-end payment, payment processing, Indonesia fintech, Niki Luhur, Thomas Husted, payment network, retail payments, acquiring bank integration