Google Provides Fresh Funds For Tokopedia

Tokopedia office (doc. Tokopedia)

JAKARTA - In the midst of slowing global economic growth, Google is investing in the Asian market. The technology giant is reported to have injected fresh funds into Indonesia's e-commerce platform, namely Tokopedia.

Launching the Nikkei Asia report, Monday, November 13, the company founded by William Tanuwijaya received fresh funds from Google and an investment company from Singapore, Temasek. Unfortunately, it is not certain how much money Google has disbursed to Tokopedia.

It's just that, based on documents submitted by the Ministry of Law and Human Rights, Google already owns 1.6 percent of Tokopedia's shares. Meanwhile, Anderson Investments, which is affiliated with Temasek, holds 3.3 percent of shares since November 4, 2020 yesterday.

Meanwhile, the value of Tokopedia shares held by Google is worth 1.1 million US dollars, equivalent to IDR 15.5 billion. Meanwhile, the shares owned by Anderson Investment and Temasek are valued at IDR33.4 billion.

In the Nikkei's notes, this figure does not necessarily reflect the actual capital paid by the two parties, because investment may continue in several stages. This means that Google and Temasek can increase their share ownership in Tokopedia in the future.

So far, Tokopedia has raised a round of funding worth 350 million US dollars. Where the majority share ownership is held by Softbank Group at 33.9 percent.

Softbank's share ownership through various entities, including the Vision Fund. After that, Alibaba Group became the second shareholder with 28.3 percent ownership, according to a Bloomberg report.

In fact, Google has invested several times in unicorn startups in Indonesia, one of which is Gojek. Where Google has the largest 6.9 percent stake in Gojek, after Singaporean investor Gamvest.

Google and Temasek's investment in Tokopedia came after Microsoft invested in Bukalapak, which is a competitor to Tokopedia. This corporate action from US companies shows great interest in injecting capital into Indonesian unicorns.

This is because they previously poured billions of dollars into India and are now doing the same to Indonesia, the third largest market in Asia in terms of population.