Ahead of the IPO, GoTo's valuation is estimated to reach 403 trillion rupiah

Last week (20/10) decacorn GoTo Group announced the inauguration of a strategic cooperation agreement with a subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA). As a follow-up, ADIA led the fundraiser pre-IPO GoTo worth $ 400 million or the equivalent of IDR 5,6 trillion. This funding is estimated to boost the company's valuation to $28,5 billion or the equivalent of Rp.403,7 trillion Rupiah - according to a source who informed Reuters.

This value increased dramatically compared to the previous valuation estimate of $ 18 billion, by combining the valuations of each company, which at that time was still raising funds separately. The current state of affairs is also estimated to carry GoTo's value in excess of $30 billion in the time leading up to its IPO, if the public investment climate gains momentum.

"We are proud to welcome ADIA as the newest investor in the company and the first in our pre-IPO fundraising, as we set the business up for exponential growth for the years to come. Support of this scale underscores our belief that Indonesia and Southeast Asia will be the next destination." the next big thing is for technology investment," said GoTo Group CEO Andre Soelistyo.

In the presentation presented, GoTo has generated more than 1,8 billion transactions in 2020 with a total GTV of more than $ 22 billion. In the corporate ecosystem, there are more than 11 million partners with the majority being MSME scale and more than 2 million driver-partner fleets.

Fluctuations ahead of IPO

Even though it hasn't been officially announced yet, GoTo's IPO plan is predicted to be carried out in early 2022. Sources said the process go public will kick off on the local exchange first (IDX), followed by New York.

"IPO is one of our strategies to support the company's sustainable growth. What we can ensure is that GoTo will always comply with all applicable regulations in carrying out every corporate action," said the company representative to DailySocial.id.

Bukalapak's IPO success at IDX and plans go public Grab via SPAC which has been previously announced actually becomes its own benchmark for 'success' for unicorn The next one will swing into the stock market. Plan Grab itself was pushed back from schedule, the initial target was for the SPAC agreement to be completed in mid-2021. The reason was that there was a request for a financial audit from the local stock exchange authority. The company targets a valuation of nearly $40 million just before it takes off.

The startup's path to the stock exchange is indeed being tested with various uncertainties. Including the decline in public offering interest through SPAC – for being too boisterous. In 2021 there were many SPAC transactions on the NASDAQ, which had an effect on the decline in the selling price of the shares below the expected nominal value. According to EY data, as of H1 2021 there were 634 successful SPAC transactions, setting a new record on the local stock exchange.

Previously there was news unicorn Traveloka will enter into an agreement with Bridgetown Holdings Ltd. for SPACs. However, recently, there was information that Traveloka's board of directors decided not to proceed with this step. The company will likely explore the traditional IPO process, remaining on US exchanges, according to the sources Bloomberg.

On the other hand, Bukalapak's corporate action in August 2021 also illustrates the rather good enthusiasm by local investors in welcoming unicorn local stock market.

Synergy Gojek-Tokopedia

The GoTo Group continues to accelerate the pace of business, especially by combining the strengths of the GoTo Group Gojek and Tokopedia. Several initiatives were recently announced, such as making Gopay and Gopaylater as the main payment gateways at Tokopedia.

"Apart from that, the synergies realized in the GoTo ecosystem include cross-selling between platforms (cross selling) and upselling, a wider hyperlocal delivery network, the largest digital payment ecosystem and financial technology, as well as promotions and loyalty programs for expanded users," added GoTo Corporate Affairs Nila Marita.

Synergy is also designed to expand opportunities for partners driver Gojek to obtain additional income, among others realized by a number of collaboration programs Gojek and Tokopedia such as Indonesia Shopping Time (WIB). Partners driver the opportunity to be able to send more orders from Tokopedia consumers.

"This business synergy also opens up great opportunities for GoTo to expand in several lines, such as daily necessities (grocery), fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), and logistics," concluded Nila.