Gojek, Tokopedia complete merger to form GoTo

INDONESIAN tech giants Gojek and Tokopedia have completed a long-awaited merger to form GoTo Group, a company specialising in e-commerce, on-demand services and financial services. 

GoTo will be headed by Gojek's co-chief executive Andre Soelistyo. Gojek's other co-CEO, Kevin Aluwi, will continue as chief executive of the ride-hailing service. Tokopedia president Patrick Cao will serve as GoTo's president, while William Tanuwijaya will remain chief executive of Tokopedia.

Mr Soelistyo will also continue to lead payments and financial services under the new brand of GoTo Financial, which includes e-wallet GoPay.

Talk of a Gojek-Tokopedia merger surfaced early this year, after the Grab-Gojek negotiations fell through. The Business Times understands that the merger will not bring any changes to Gojek's operations in Singapore.

The deal is the largest-ever business combination in Indonesia and the largest between two Asia-based Internet media and services companies to date, GoTo said in a press release on Monday. 

The total past valuation of Gojek and Tokopedia was US$18 billion, it added in the release. This is based on historical fundraising rounds for Gojek, priced in 2019, and Tokopedia, priced in early-2020.

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The combined group has a gross transaction value of over US$22 billion, with more than 1.8 billion transactions in 2020, GoTo said in its press release. It added that it has 11 million merchant partners as of end-2020 and over 100 million monthly active users. 

The formation of GoTo "will mean same-day e-commerce delivery moves a step closer to becoming the norm in Indonesia", the company said. It also plans to further develop its payments and financial services.

"Gojek drivers will deliver even more Tokopedia packages, merchant partners of all sizes will benefit from strengthened business solutions and we will use our combined scale to increase financial inclusion in an emerging region with untapped growth potential," said Mr Soelistyo.

Mr Cao added: "Our business model is now even more diverse, stable and sustainable. We have Gojek's high volume, high frequency mobility transactions, combined with Tokopedia's high value, medium frequency e-commerce transactions."

The combined entity's investors include Alibaba Group, Astra International, BlackRock, Capital Group, DST, Facebook, Google, JD.com, KKR, Northstar, Pacific Century Group, PayPal, Provident, Sequoia Capital India, SoftBank Vision Fund 1, Telkomsel, Temasek, Tencent, Visa and Warburg Pincus.

Goldman Sachs is acting as the financial adviser to Gojek, while Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP and Assegaf Hamzah & Partners are serving as Gojek's legal advisers.

Citi is acting as the financial adviser to Tokopedia. Allen & Overy LLP is serving as Tokopedia's legal adviser.

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