Andi Taufan Garuda Putra was born on 24 January 1987 and graduated from ITB in 2008 with a degree in Business Management. He joined IBM, then resigned in 2009. His family opposed the move from a Jakarta office to village rice fields.
In 2010 he began Amartha Microfinance in Ciseeng, Bogor, with about Rp 10 million of savings. The first loans went to five borrowers, none above Rp 1 million. Borrowers were women in groups who shared responsibility for repayment.
His first co-founder left in 2013 because growth was slow. By 2014 Amartha had about 5,000 customers, five branches and 40 employees. Demand for loans reached about Rp 500 million while he could fund only Rp 200 million.
In April 2016 Amartha relaunched as a peer-to-peer fintech and lent Rp 10 billion in three months. It disbursed Rp 700 billion in 2018, closed a Series B led by LINE Ventures in December 2019, and raised $28 million led by Women's World Banking in July 2023. By 2023 it had lent about Rp 1.7 trillion to more than 360,000 women.