Develop "Infrastructure as a Service", Tokopedia Reportedly Investing in Three Startups

In an interview with Reuters, Co-Founder and CEO of Tokopedia William Tanuwijaya said that his party was in the process of investing in two logistics startups and one agritech startup. For the agricultural startup, SayurBox is the strongest candidate. Previously, our source said Tokopedia involvement in the investment round to the startup.

While his involvement with logistics startups, in particular smart logistics, is closely related to the vision of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) which is currently the focus of Tokopedia.

William, who we tried to contact, has not provided more detailed information regarding this matter, including the names of the startups. Previously, Tokopedia had just completed the acquisition of a marriage-related service platform Bride story.

Build IaaS in the ecosystem E-commerce

"More than 1% of Indonesia's economy has occurred in Tokopedia. We want to make it 5%," said William.

IaaS is an integrated infrastructure service in the form of logistics technology, fulfillment, payments and financial services to bridge transactions E-commerce. This initiative is called for after the round $1,1 billion funding led by SoftBank Vision Fund and Alibaba Group.

To realize this mission, of course, there are many things that must be done by Tokopedia. Starting from the development of platforms, business models, to perform a series of integrations. Various strategies are carried out, both in the form of internal initiatives and in the form of external cooperation.

William said the company will also optimize artificial intelligence-based systems to support the IaaS. One of them is to predict buyer behavior, in an effort to speed up and cut shipping costs. This model is important to implement, because as an archipelagic country, Indonesia has its own challenges for the logistics business.

He also emphasized that currently Tokopedia will continue to focus on user and business growth. It is not surprising that until now the company is still increasing the value of investment, including from Softbank after meeting with President Joko Widodo yesterday.