• General
  • August 28, 2019
  • 4 minutes read

Amazon Reportedly In Talks To Invest In Go-Jek

Go-Jek founder and CEO Nadiem Makarim Photo by World Economic Forum / Sikarin Thanachaiary via CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 license According…

Go-Jek founder and CEO Nadiem Makarim

Photo by World Economic Forum / Sikarin Thanachaiary via CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 license

According to a new report from Bloomberg, Amazon is in talks to invest in Go-Jek, an Indonesian ride-hailing giant that’s already raised $3.1 billion in funding, last valued at $9.5 billion. Bloomberg reports Amazon is one of the firms that have entered negotiations with Go-Jek to join its ongoing funding round. According to Bloomberg, Amazon may make a significant investment for a slice of Go-Jek, although talks may still fall apart or have their terms changed.

Go-Jek is a leading frontier in Indonesia’s digital economy, which is expected to hit $100 billion by 2025, according to a Google report. It debuted as an app for hailing motorbike taxis in Jakarta (Indonesia’s capital) four years ago but has since expanded into other sectors like food delivery, digital payments, on-demand jobs (for example, cleaning), and even medicine delivery. Go-Jek is one of Southeast Asia’s most valuable tech companies, and has another similar and well-known competitor in the region: Grab. We recently reported on Grab’s planned big investment in Vietnam, another Southeast Asian country with a growing digital economy [expected to hit $33 billion by 2025, according to the aforecited Google report].

Go-Jek is already backed by well-known names like Google, Tencent, JD.com, Visa, Mitsubishi and more, so raising funding from Amazon doesn’t sound far-fetched. Amazon also [somewhat] displayed a knack for foreign investments after it led a $575 million round for Deliveroo, a U.K. food delivery startup, earlier this year.

Indonesia is by far Southeast Asia’s most promising digital economy, and Go-Jek is in a leading position to benefit from its growth. Raising more funding might be key to expanding into other sectors and grabbing more business to its coffers. For reference, its competitor, Grab, has raised $9.1 billion in funding to take on the Southeast Asian market. Go-Jek could be looking to boost its own cash coffers to compete with a better funded competitor [Grab] in the same region [Southeast Asia].


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