Indonesia’s unicorn startup GoTo Group raises $1.3 billion in a pre-IPO funding round

GoTo Group, a unicorn tech startup created in May as a result of a merger between Indonesia’s internet startups Gojek and Tokopedia, announced Thursday it has secured $1.3 billion from investors in the first close of an ongoing funding round ahead of a planned initial public offering.

Backers in the pre-IPO funding round include tech heavyweights like Google and Tencent, Singapore state investor Temasek, Malaysian sovereign wealth fund Permodalan Nasional Berhad as well as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.

GoTo Group said it expects more investors to come on board. The latest fundraise marked the first close of the funding round — ahead of the final close in the coming weeks. The company is seeking to raise as much as US$2 billion in pre-IPO fundraising this year and is targeting an IPO in Indonesia next year at a valuation of $30 billion.

As we reported back in May, Gojek acquired Indonesian e-commerce startup Tokopedia. The total amount of the deal was not disclosed. Gojek said the agreement marked the largest business deal in the country. The new company, GoTo Group, is led by Gojek’s Andre Soelistyo as group CEO and Tokopedia’s Patrick Cao will be group president.

The merger helps Gojek and Tokopedia take on larger, regional rivals such as Singapore-headquartered Grab and internet company Sea, which operates the e-commerce platform Shopee and has a digital payments and financial services business. GoTo Group’s business now spans ride-hailing, financial services, and e-commerce.

In a statement, GoTo Group CEO Andre Soelistyo said, “Indonesia and Southeast Asia are some of the most exciting growth markets in the world, and the backing we’ve secured shows the confidence that investors have in the region’s rapidly expanding digital economy and our market-leading position.”

Tokopedia was founded in 2009 by Herman Widjaja, Leontinus Alpha Edison, Melissa Siska Juminto, and William Tanuwijaya. The Jakarta, Indonesia-based technology startup focused on democratizing commerce through technology.

Founded in 2010 by Kevin Aluwi, Michaelangelo Moran, and Nadiem Makarim, Gojek is an app for ordering food, commuting, digital payments, shopping, hyper-local delivery, getting a massage, and two dozen services. It is Indonesia’s first and fastest-growing decacorn building an on-demand empire across Southeast Asia. The Gojek app was launched in 2015 in Indonesia and is now the largest consumer transactional technology group on a GTV-basis in Southeast Asia.