The two Indonesian giants namely Gojek, ride-hailing and payments firm, and e-commerce leader Tokopedia declared a multi-billion dollar deal and merged their businesses on Monday. It is a historical amalgamation after years of rivalry and competition creating a powerhouse called GoTo Group in the nation’s biggest deal ever made.
The deal came into force when both the companies were backed by global heavyweight investors seeking to boost valuation and profitability. Moreover, it will also extend growing consolidation among Southeast Asia’s fast-growing tech startups.
The interesting part is the investors involving some of the top known names- Alibaba Group Holding, Softbank Group Corp, and Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC are Tokopedia’s. Gojek involves Google, Warburg Pincus, and Tencent Holdings.
Tokopedia- Profile
It is an Indonesian tech firm specialized in e-commerce, founded in 2009 by William Tanuwijaya and Leontinus Alpha Edison. It is positioned in the Indonesian unicorn club along with ride-hailing firm Gojek.
Back in 2019, as per the report, Tokopedia was titled as the most visited site on a desktop in the Indonesian market between July and September with a total of 65,953,400 average monthly visits, securing 25% of the total market share.
Gojek- Profile
It was established in 2010, a group based in Jakarta. It first came into action as a call center to connect consumers to courier delivery and ride-hailing services. It launched in 2015 its first application with 4 services- GoRide, GoSend, GoShop, and GoFood. And it was valued at US$10 billion today, it has transformed into a supper application offering 20+ services under one roof.
It is considered the first unicorn of Indonesia and decacorn of the nation. It currently operates in Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines. By June 2020, it recorded about 170 million users across Southeast Asia.
Present- Merger- GoTo Group
The report suggests that the companies were seeking an $18 billion merger.
Meanwhile, the CEO Andre Soelistyo will lead the combined business as GoTo’s CEO, and the President will be Tokopedia’s president Patrick Cao.
Meanwhile commenting on the merger Cao said- “Our business model is now even more diverse, stable and sustainable. We have Gojek’s high volume, high-frequency, mobility transactions, combined with Tokopedia’s high value, medium frequency e-commerce transactions”. Lastly, Goldman Sachs is the financial advisor to Gojek and Citi for Tokopedia. The interesting part would be to see how they will function as a merger in the coming future.
