Telkomsel invests a further $300 million in Gojek – TechCrunch

Telkomsel, a unit of Indonesia’s largest telecom operator Telkom, has invested a further $300 million in ride-hailing and funds agency Gojek, the 2 corporations mentioned Monday, simply months after the community supplier wrote a $150 million examine to the Southeast Asian agency.

The announcement comes amid Gojek working to seal a proposed merger with e-commerce platform Tokopedia. The $18 billion deal would end in a brand new entity referred to as GoTo, in accordance with media experiences. Telkomsel’s funding in the present day probably makes it considered one of GoTo’s prime eight traders.

Gojek — which has raised over $3.45 billion thus far from high-profile traders together with Google, Fb, PayPal, Visa, and Tencent — and Telkomsel mentioned their strategic partnership will “open up new synergies as the 2 firms scale up digital companies and ship new, revolutionary options.”

The 2 corporations have maintained a deal since 2018 to subsidize the price of cell information consumed by the ride-hailing agency’s driver companions.

With greater than 170 million subscribers, Telkomsel is the most important telecom operator in Indonesia. Along with ride-hailing, Gojek has expanded to a number of extra companies, together with digital funds and meals supply in Indonesia.

At this time’s information follows a $150 million funding Telkomsel made in Gojek in November final 12 months. The 2 corporations have since built-in a number of features of their companies to speed up digitization of micro, small and medium enterprises and bringing larger value financial savings for driver companions.

A few of these embody integration of Telkomsel MyAds with GoBiz, which allows Gojek’s MSME companions to make use of MyAds to effectively broaden their outreach to Telkomsel customers, and simple onboarding for Gojek MSME companions to develop into Telkomsel reseller companions by means of the DigiPOS Aja! Software.

The 2 corporations additionally co-market gaming companies by means of Telkomsel’s Dunia Video games and GoPay in collaboration with Tencent, offering larger worth for PUBGM customers, they mentioned.

“Telkomsel is optimistic that this newest funding will open extra alternatives for society to entry superior digital technology-based improvements developed by homegrown firms,” mentioned Telkomsel chief government Setyanto Hantoro in a press release.