The Reason Facebook And Paypal Are Interested In Disbursing Fresh Funds For Gojek

Online motorcycle taxi drivers (Angga Nugraha / VOI)

JAKARTA - During the COVID-19 pandemic, Gojek officially received an injection of fresh funds from Facebook and PayPal. The two companies invest around 3 billion US dollars, or the equivalent of Rp45 trillion rupiah, in the company's Gojek fundraising.

Apart from Facebook and PayPal, Google and Tencent also returned to increase their investment. The two companies have provided funds to Gojek in the previous round of fundraising.

Gojek co-CEO Andre Soelistyo said that the joining of Facebook and PayPal as investors, following Google and Tencent, supports Gojek in its mission of driving the growth of the digital economy in Southeast Asia, with a focus on payment and financial services.

"By working together, we have the opportunity to achieve something truly unique as we support more digitalization in the business world and ensure millions of customers benefit from the digital economy," said Andre in a press release received by VOI, Wednesday, 3 June.

Not only PayPal, Facebook is also listed as one of Gojek's new investors. The investment from Facebook creates opportunities for businesses in Indonesia, including taking advantage of the widely used instant messaging service, WhatsApp. But it is not clear what it will look like.

"Gojek, WhatsApp, and Facebook are important services in Indonesia. Through cooperation, we can help millions of MSMEs and their customers to join the largest digital economy community in Southeast Asia," said Matt Idema, Chief Operating Officer, WhatsApp in the same statement. .

Gojek (Irvan Meidianto / VOI)

Gojek and Facebook

It is known, Zuckerberg has long targeted Indonesia as his business sector, because this country is one of the largest social media markets in the world, and seeing that four of one of the markets is Indonesia for the first time launching WhatsApp Pay.

Where Facebook sees, the agreement to work with is an opportunity to contribute to technology platforms in Indonesia and Asia. Moreover, Gojek has succeeded in accommodating hundreds of driver-partners and customers who have used its platform, since 2015.

"Gojek has processed billions of transactions every year through its payment business and has the largest digital wallet in Indonesia," said Idema.

Likewise with PayPal, which is also taking part in Facebook's new chapter in digital wallet services. The plan for the PayPal collaboration will be integrated with the Gopay service which has accessed more than 25 million partners and customers.

Gojek itself currently has an investment value of more than 10 billion US dollars. For information, Gojek started out as a ride-hailing company but has expanded into food delivery, payment, and other consumer services.

This ride-hailing company also has branches in various countries in Southeast Asia, including Vietnam and Thailand. Gojek services have operated in more than 200 cities across the country while GoPay is used in 370 cities, processing billions of transactions annually.

"This investment will support Facebook and Gojek's common goal of empowering businesses and encouraging financial inclusion across the archipelago," said Idema.

The latest funding will also give Gojek a boost in its fierce battle with Grab. A competitor for ride-hailing services based in Singapore. Grab has also expanded mobile payments that have the same superior product as Gopay, namely Ovo.

The deal highlights the growing influence of US Big Tech in Asia, following Facebook's $ 5.7 billion investment in Reliance Jio, India. Companies including Google, Microsoft and Twitter are all expanding their presence in the region as they compete with Chinese technology competitors such as Alibaba and Tencent.