Most small shops in Indonesia keep their books in a notebook and a drawer full of receipts. That mess of paper is where Mekari starts.
The company began as Jurnal, a cloud accounting product run since 2015 by PT Jurnal Consulting Indonesia. Suwandi Soh is listed as the chief executive. With him are Daniel Witono on product, Anthony Kosasih on operations and Dirman Suharno, all named as co-founders in profiles of the group.
Talenta for payroll and HR, Klikpajak for tax filing, Qontak for customer conversations, Sign for digital signatures.
Indonesia has tens of millions of small businesses, and a very small share of them used proper accounting software. Jurnal went after that gap with a plain offer: your books, online, simple enough for an owner who is not an accountant. East Ventures backed the company, and Mandiri Capital joined among its investors. By 2020 a business paper reported more than 10,000 users in several cities, and the company's own materials now speak of tens of thousands of firms.
The turn came when Jurnal stopped being only an accounting tool. Around 2018 and 2019 it joined other products under the Mekari name. Talenta for payroll and HR, Klikpajak for tax filing, Qontak for customer conversations, Sign for digital signatures. A customer who started with the books could add salaries, taxes and sales without leaving the system.
That bundle earned the group a major investor from abroad. In May 2022 Money Forward, the Japanese cloud accounting firm, led a US$50m Series E. Aggregator estimates put total funding at roughly US$68m to US$71m across six rounds, with annual recurring revenue near US$97.5m in 2024, although these figures are estimates and not company statements.
The hard part is the unglamorous one. Software for small business is a long, slow sale to people who do not trust new tools. Integration of several products is also harder than naming them one brand.
For a founder building for small businesses, Mekari's path suggests a simple rule: sell the boring problem first, then widen the offer once the customer already trusts you with their books. The most stubborn customers are the ones who stay.