Astra commits $100m to Go-Jek's Series F
Astra International, an Indonesian conglomerate that controls the country’s largest automotive distributor, has agreed to invest $100 million in the first tranche of a Series F round for ride-hailing and delivery platform Go-Jek.
The company announced last month that it had raised around $1 billion in the initial phase of the Series F, with Google, JD.com and Tencent Holdings among the returning investors. Astra’s commitment is also a re-up after it contributed $150 million to the Series E last year. Go-Jek is expected to raise around $2 billion in total at a valuation of $9-10 billion, up from $5 billion for the previous round.
Astra has also agreed to launch a joint venture with the start-up, which is intended to help more drivers join the four-wheel ride-hailing business. They plan to launch a fleet of several thousand cars, pre-installed with Astra’s fleet management system and the Go-Jek app. Go-Jek entered the four-wheeler space with Go-Car in 2016, the same year it established a collaboration with Blue Bird, one of Indonesia’s leading taxi companies.
“Industry players must join forces to maximize the great potential of the Southeast Asian digital economy, especially in Indonesia. The combination of Astra's strength in the automotive sector and Go-Jek’s leading technology will open up more opportunities for people to grow their incomes and improve their welfare,” said Nadiem Makarim, founder and CEO of Go-Jek (pictured, right, with Astra CEO Prijono Sugiarto), in a statement.
The company claims to be Southeast Asia’s largest mobile-on-demand and digital payments platform in the region. It operates in 204 cities across five countries in Southeast Asia, offering services – covering ride-hailing, food ordering, delivery, and online-to-offline local services – through a network of more than two million drivers and 400,000 merchants. The payments and food delivery verticals processed transactions worth $6.3 billion and $2 billion, respectively, in 2018.
Go-Jek has received substantial Chinese strategic backing, with the likes of Tencent, JD.com and Meituan-Dianping present on the shareholder roster. However, it has also attracted corporates from other geographies and industries, with Mitsubishi Corporation joining the Series F and the VC unit of Djarum Group – an Indonesian conglomerate best known as a tobacco maker and lead shareholder in Bank Central Asia (BCA) – participating alongside Astra in the Series E.
Astra, which has a market capitalization of around INR336 trillion ($23.7 billion) and generated revenue of INR206 trillion in 2017, employs more than 226,000 people across 226 subsidiaries. It is primarily active in automotive, financial services, mining and heavy equipment, agribusiness, infrastructure and logistics, information technology, and real estate.
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