Indonesian e-commerce unicorn Tokopedia has secured around $500 million from Singapore’s state investor Temasek as part of its latest funding round, DealStreetAsia has learnt.
The country’s largest online marketplace is currently in talks with existing investors including SoftBank Vision Fund and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd as well as US internet companies as part of this round and plans to raise an additional $500 million to $1 billion, one of the executives quoted above said.
Another executive added that Temasek made the investment in Tokopedia at a pre-money valuation at around $7.5 billion.
Tokopedia did not respond to an email query, while Temasek said it does not comment on market speculations.
Earlier this year, the Financial Times reported that Tokopedia was in talks with its existing investors to raise up to $1.5 billion.
Late last year, Bloomberg in a report had said Indonesia’s second-largest unicorn was in the market to raise between $1 billion and $1.5 billion and added this round was expected to be its last private funding round before it pursues an initial public offering.
Tokopedia is considered one of the leaders in Indonesia’s ultra-competitive e-commerce space, which also has several other unicorns such as Bukalapak, Lazada, and Shopee. Alibaba has a controlling stake in Lazada and is also on the cap table of Bukalapak.
Meanwhile, JD.ID, the Indonesian operation of Chinese e-commerce major JD.com, had earlier this year claimed to have also surpassed the $1-billion valuation mark.
These companies have been both the drivers and beneficiaries of Indonesia’s e-commerce boom. According to a report by Google and Temasek, Indonesia’s e-commerce market will be worth $82 billion by 2025, making up almost two-thirds of the country’s digital economy.
According to statistics by iPrice, Tokopedia and Shopee currently sit on top of the Indonesian e-commerce leader board in terms of web visits and apps download.
Tokopedia’s growth in Indonesia has been much fuelled by the backing of several well-heeled investors, including Alibaba, Sequoia Capital India and SoftBank Vision Fund, which led its last $1.1 billion round in December 2018, valuing the company at $7 billion.
Tokopedia, which claims more than 90 million monthly active users, has been one of the companies that have seen an uptick in traction amid the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the company filled the headlines for the wrong reasons last month after it emerged that the details of as many as 91 million of its users had been leaked online.
The company has since ensured that “crucial information such as passwords remains successfully protected behind encryption.”
