On Call with Shilpa Gautam, AwanTunai CFO | Part 1

On Call with Insignia Ventures

On Call with Insignia returns with a new guest, Shilpa Gautam, the CFO of AwanTunai! AwanTunai is a company digitizing the traditional FMCG supply chain in Indonesia to enable low-cost, equitable financing for MSMEs, a market opportunity worth US$300B in this segment alone. Over the years, we’ve heard plenty from CEO Dino Setiawan on the journey of AwanTunai (its origins, growth amidst the pandemic-hit lending space, and its appless, proprietary approach to embedded financing). This time we get to hear from Shilpa’s point of view as CFO: how her joining AwanTunai was a full circle moment in a decade-long career across lending, audit, M&A, banking, how she approached becoming the company’s first CFO amidst the onset of the tech funding winter and the company’s next fundraise, and how her role fits into AwanTunai’s big picture “building the next wave of financial inclusion in Indonesia”, and a “textbook example for financial inclusion” globally. Timestamps (01:15) Introducing Shilpa Gautam, AwanTunai CFO; (06:44) Scaling a Lending Business with the Capital Efficiency and the Right Investors; (13:50) The Value and Cost of Solving for Risk Before Scale; (20:45) Solving for Scale in a US$300B Market Opportunity; (25:01) Make or Break Corner: From Raising Series B Amidst the Tech Winter to Presenting at Davos; The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, tax, or business advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Insignia Ventures⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ fund. Any and all opinions shared in this episode are solely personal thoughts and reflections of the guest and the host.