INDONESIA – Gojeck, Indonesia’s home-grown ride-hailing and food delivery company, has raised US$150 million from Telkomsel, a leading network service provider and subsidiary of Telkom Indonesia and Singtel.
This strategic investment takes place about six months after gojek received a financing from Facebook and PayPal along with existing backers Google and Tencent, in a series F round that the company had so far raised to over US$3 billion.
The collaboration between Gojeck and Indonesia’s largest mobile service provider, marks an expansion of the two tech giants’ multi-year partnership that has offered affordable data packages to Gojek driver-partners since 2018.
With the new partnership, customers of the company are expected to enjoy “greater convenience and benefits” such as innovative product offerings and cost savings through joint promotions and product bundles.
e27 reports that the two giants will also collaborate on growing Indonesia’s digital lifestyle sector and increasing the advertising technology solutions available to merchants of all sizes.
In addition, Gojek and Telkomsel will also work together to implement professional training programmes for Telkomsel employees and share best practices in an effort to boost the country’s technology talent pool.
“By working together, we hope to help Indonesia become a true digital powerhouse in Southeast Asia and bring the benefits of the digital economy to millions more consumers, driver-partners and small businesses,” said gojek co-CEO Andre Soelistyo.
In his view, in a fast-growing, mobile-first market, collaborations like this one are crucial for supercharging the digital economy as great things can only be achieved if the region’s leading technology companies pool their resources and work together to accelerate development.
Established in 2010, gojek focussed on courier and motorcycle ride-hailing services in its early years, before launching the app in January 2015 in Indonesia.
Since then, it has grown to become a super app in Southeast Asia, providing access to a wide range of services — from transportation and digital payments, to food delivery, logistics and many other on-demand services.
Gojek now operates across main cities in five Southeast Asian countries and as of June 2020, gojek’s app and its ecosystem have been downloaded 190 million times by users across the region.
The ride hailing and food delivery company made a first close of its ongoing series F round at US$1 billion early last year and disclosed unspecified investments from Mitsubishi Motors Corporation and Payment major Visa among other financiers.
Telkomsel thus joins a long list of over 30 investors that have backed Gojek so far, although Dealstreet Asia notes that the company would be one of the very few Indonesian companies to make it to the Unicorn company’s cap table.
Over its 10 years of existence, the Indonesian Super-app company has also made 10 acquisitions, the latest deal being with WePay in September.
Liked this article? Subscribe to Food Business Africa News, our regular email newsletters with the latest news insights from Africa and the World’s food and agro industry. SUBSCRIBE HERE
