Cashlez receives $2m for point-of-sale card reader expansion
Jakarta fintech start-up Cashlez has secured $2m in a funding round led by Bank Mandiri's venture capital unit. Cashlez operates a mobile point of sales system, comprising a card reader and a smartphone app, aimed at Jakarta's 56 million micro, small and medium-sized businesses whose internet connections are not always reliable. The new funds will help Cashlez target an additional 4,000 merchants and IDR50bn ($3.76m) of monthly transactions by the end of the year.

JAKARTA -- The venture capital unit of Indonesia's largest lender by assets, Bank Mandiri, on Wednesday said it is leading a $2 million funding round for local financial technology startup Cashlez, which claims to offer a portable, more user-friendly alternative to electronic data capture machines.

This is the seventh startup investment by Mandiri Capital Indonesia, and the third offering a payment solution. Since its establishment in January 2016, MCI has invested around 300 billion rupiah ($22.4 million) in fintech startups focusing on three areas: payment options, peer-to-peer lending and the so-called small enterprise solution.