Indonesia’s home-grown ride-hailing giant gojek today announced that it 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 round from Facebook and PayPal.
The collaboration marks an expansion of the two tech giants’ multi-year partnership that has offered affordable data packages to gojek driver-partners since 2018.
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The joining of forces is also aimed at providing “greater convenience and benefits” such as innovative product offerings and cost savings through joint promotions and product bundles.
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, they will 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.
This agreement is also part of Telkomsel’s journey to strengthen its three digital pillars: digital connectivity, digital platform and digital services.
“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.
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Telkomsel President Director, Setyanto Hantoro, commented: “We believe that working with gojek and its extensive ecosystem will accelerate Telkomsel’s growth as a digital telco and our efforts to build an inclusive and sustainable digital ecosystem, which is particularly crucial amid the pandemic and beyond. This spirit of collaboration will continue to be our guiding force as we seek to bring the benefits of digital technology in every aspect of life, to all levels of Indonesian society.”
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.
As of June 2020, gojek’s app and its ecosystem have been downloaded 190 million times by users across the region.
As per Crunchbase, since inception, gojek has raised US$4.8 billion from 30 investors across 10 rounds. Its other investors include Google, Mitsubishi, Pegasus Tech Ventures, Tencent and Visa.
Over its 10 years of existence, it has also made 10 acquisitions, the latest deal being with WePay in September.
Telkomsel is a digital cellular operator in Indonesia and claims to be serving more than 170 million customers.
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Over the last 25 years of serving the nation, Telkomsel has been consistently implementing the latest broadband technology, including being the first to trial 5G services in Indonesia.
Furthermore, Telkomsel continues to develop digital businesses such as mobile gaming, digital entertainment, digital advertising, digital lifestyle, mobile financial services, enterprise solutions, and Internet of Things to enable Indonesian society to continue discovering new ways of living.
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Image Credit: gojek
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