Name: GoTo: The multibillion-dollar superapp behind Indonesia’s most valuable merger | CNBC Make It
Uploaded: 2021-06-07T18:00:05.000Z
Duration: 9 min 56 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

This company accounts for 2% of Indonesia's GDP.

Adverbs of manner

Hopefully one day we'll contribute to 5 to 10%.

And is vying to become Southeast Asia's most valuable start-up.

So what exactly is GoTo, and how did it get so big?

GoTo Group is an Indonesian tech company formed in May 2021 in a blockbuster merger between

two of the country's largest start-ups: Gojek and Tokopedia.

In some sense, this is a long history in the making.

The main product of the merger, a powerful super app you can use to book a ride,

buy something or make a payment,  is today used by tens of millions.

But the road to this landmark union started more than a decade ago.

Founded a year apart in the capital Jakarta, Tokopedia started in 2009 as an e-commerce

marketplace to connect small merchants with buyers, while Gojek launched in 2010 as a

ride-hailing platform for motorbike taxis.

Both companies were created by a group of friends in their twenties, who were responding

to an emerging wave of internet connectivity taking hold of the country at the time.

So in 2007, we at Tokopedia see the opportunity where Indonesia is already the king of social media.

And we believe that if we can build a platform, an online marketplace, where we can connect

these strangers across the island, with the power of internet we should be able to democratize

opportunity and democratize commerce to everyone.

There was kind of this inflection point where people were seeing the potential of the internet there,

In a sprawling country with the world's fourth-largest population and a rapidly growing

middle class, the founders were onto something.

In the years that followed, both businesses ventured into digital payments and other services.

Tokopedia doubled down on adding new market segments such as parents, couples and small

Meanwhile, Gojek expanded its ride-hailing platform regionally and grew its domestic

superapp, offering users on-demand services from food to massages and even manicures.

From day one, we offered multiple different services.

So we never saw ourselves as a ride-hailing company or a delivery company.

We saw that the ojek driver could do many things.

A human being on a motorcycle could do many things, and could be trusted to do many things.

And so, when we launched, we already had these multiple different services on the same base of drivers.

Then, in 2015, the two began working in partnership, using Gojek drivers to provide same-day delivery

for Tokopedia products during their off-peak riding hours.

We were the first in the world to bring together a partnership between an on-demand platform

With that true collaboration, we uniquely create the first same-day delivery.

Both companies have grown to become juggernauts, boasting an impressive list of investors such

as Softbank, Alibaba, Tencent, Facebook and Google.

Their $18 billion merger, Indonesia's largest ever, comes amid fierce competition from Singapore-based

There was speculation they may merge with other regional start-ups.

But in reality, we were under no pressure to do anything.

And, you know, when we looked at our futures, we actually realized that a lot of the things

that we've done together we really amazing but could be so much more if we actually were

Under the new structure, GoJek's Andre Soelistyo takes over as CEO of GoTo Group and GoTo Financial,

Tokopedia's Patrick Cao becomes president, while Kevin and William will remain CEOs of

The combined entity counts over 100 million monthly active users, more than 11 million

merchants, and over 2 million drivers in an ecosystem that represents 2% of Indonesia's

Imagine that Amazon, DoorDash, Uber, PayPal, Stripe is combined together.

There's a saying that if you want to go fast, you go alone; if you want to go far,

So GoTo, basically, is go far, go together.

GoTo is hoping that will help them capture a greater chunk of the market in Indonesia

Indonesia's digital economy is expected to be worth $124 billion by 2025 as the wider

Southeast Asian online market triples in value to more than $309 billion.

Florian Hoppe, a partner at management consulting firm Bain & Company, co-authored the research.

Indonesia obviously remains hugely exciting because population in Southeast Asia, huge

economic growth forecasts for the next 10 years or thereabouts, really turning into

And a big part of its story has been this quick adoption of digital services.

But in order to expand, Florian said businesses need to target their services at the 120 million

Indonesians who live outside urban areas across the 17,000 island archipelago.

Indonesia is now facing that next level of growth challenge.

A lot of the early growth was driven by key urban centers, was driven by Java.

That captures about half the population or thereabouts.

The next half is going to be the really interesting story.

Establishing logistics services there, onboarding them for payments, really starting to integrate

For GoTo, that includes providing payments and financial services in a country where

47 million adults lack access to mainstream financial services and products.

When you have 17,000 islands, to credit score everyone, it's so difficult, right.

But with this technology everyone has a mobile phone, and with this, you can capture and

It's these individuals who are underbanked or unbanked where falling sick or economic

shocks can really mean the difference between being in the middle class and falling back

And so this is really both a huge business opportunity but also an area where we really

To date, neither Gojek nor Tokopedia are profitable.

The company is said to be planning another round of fundraising before publicly listing,

On timeframe, not only for the IPO, but on all product development, my timeframe is always

But to be realistic to the team and so on then it's as soon as possible.

We hope that we can aim to list by hopefully the end of this year.

The merger of GoJek and Tokopedia comes weeks after rival superapp Grab completed a Nasdaq

listing through the world's biggest special purpose acquisition company merger, valuing

Subtitles ListPlay Video

GoTo: The multibillion-dollar superapp behind Indonesia’s most valuable merger | CNBC Make It

potential

commitment

figure

opportunity