Indonesia based motorcycle on-demand company Go-Jek has reportedly closed a new USD 1.2 billion round led by Tencent. Post this investment, the company is valued at USD 3 billion. The development however hasn’t been publically disclosed by the two companies yet and has been reported by TechCrunch citing sources close to the development. An official announcement is expected soon.

(Image: Go-Jek Driver by blogdino/ CC BY 2.0)

There is no information on what other investors have participated in the round though it is expected that they come from the existing pool of stakeholders. Go-Jek previously reported a USD 550 million round in which the funds came from KKR, Warburg Pincus, Farallon Capital and Capital Group Private Markets along with then existing investors Sequoia India, Northstar Group, DST Global, NSI Ventures, Rakuten Ventures and Formation Group. The previous round valued the company close to USD 1.3 billion making it the first Indonesian unicorn startup.

Apart from motorcycle taxi service, Go-Jek operates payment system, food delivery service and courier service. Go-Jek has over 200K drivers across 25 Indonesian cities with 20 million app downloads. Competing against Uber and Singapore based Grab on many fronts, the funds will fuel Go-Jek to aggressively face the rivals. It is also possible that Tencent might explore fresh opportunities in the mobile payment space with Go-Jek by leveraging WeChat.

Source: TechCrunch

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Go-Jek, Indonesia’s app based ride hailing app has a new association in pipeline with Blue Bird, Indonesia’s largest taxi and transportation company. According to news reports, Blue Bird said that the collaboration will cover aspects of technology, payments and promotions. Go-Jek has been providing two wheeler taxis for a long time but recently forayed into cab space. The other major players in Indonesia are Uber and Grab.

Blue Bird is a big name in the transportation market of Indonesia but got under fire recently for involvement in street protests against the app based cab hailing services. The protests were largely targeted at Uber and Grab as Go-Jek was primarily focussed on motorcycle cabs at that time. The protests didn’t result in the ban of the services as demanded however a new set of regulations were brought in light which remove the control of apps over prices, require drivers to associate with offline rental companies and block the usage of private cars with cab hailing apps. The potential association still comes as a surprise following the sequence of events in the region.

With the new regulations in place, Blue Bird decided to take the Uber way in and Go-Jek seems to be the only service in the region that was suitable for an association. Both of them are local companies and will try to form a strong front against both Uber and Grab which are based out of US and Malaysia respectively.

Both Blue Bird and Go-Jek stand to gain a lot out of this possible association. Go-Jek is new to the cab market and will have a large fleet at its disposal to provide service to the users. On the other hand, many other local cab companies are working with Grab and with Go-Jek, Blue Bird will have an addition channel to get cab bookings without having to work on the technology from scratch. Another aspect could be new services for Go-Jek as Blue Bird not only offers cabs but other transportation options like buses and is also involved with logistics. Go-Jek also offers multiple services under the brand and both the companies could explore more options to mutually benefit each other in future.

Source: Channel News Asia

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