Soon to IPO, Tokopedia Is Said to Start a New Funding Round Worth of 21 Trillion Rupiah

Tokopedia is said to start new funding round (fundraising), the value reached up to $1.5 billion or equivalent to 21.1 trillion Rupiah. According to the source reported by Bloomberg, one of the investors is said to be a US-based internet company - also one of Tokopedia's investors in the previous round - and to participate with $1 billion.

In the series G round closed by the end of 2018, the company has secured $1 billion funding, increasing its valuation to $7 billion. Aside from Softbank and Alibaba, other investors are not to be mentioned.

William Tanuwijaya has mentioned the plan to go-public on some occasions. Although the time is yet to be precise, the internals have been talking about the pre-IPO initiative in a short period of time. The company is to make sure the balance sheet stays in the positive state.

It is likely that additional funds collected will be focused on increasing company traction, before finally having "green" finance and an IPO. Finally Tokopedia announced that their GMV had exceeded 222 trillion Rupiah throughout 2019. On various occasions, William emphasized, instead of regional expansion they wanted to optimize local penetration in Indonesia, including to reach rural areas.

Tokopedia President Patrick Cao also explained, there are currently more than 60 million SMEs in Indonesia and Tokopedia only contributed around 6.6 million, equivalent to creating 857 thousand new jobs. They also have around 350 thousand partners and will continue to add to this number amid increasing daily transactions.

Cao also highlighted that although the IPO plan is getting closer, they are to prioritize local listing first - unlike Alibaba's IPO debut in New York.

–Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian