Moxy and Bilna Merge to Form MoxyBilna

Kicking off 2016, two e-commerce services focused on women and families announced the merger of their operations. Moxy, backed by Ardent Capital, and Bilna announced the merger of the two companies to become MoxyBilna. Group CEO Moxy Jérémy Fichet becomes Group CEO MoxyBilna, Co-Founder and CFO Bilna Eka Himawan becomes Group CFO, Co-Founder and CEO Bilna Ferry Tenka becomes Executive Chairman of the new company and leads operations in Indonesia, while Moxy's Indonesia operations leader Andrew Senduk will became the Chief Revenue Officer.

The strong grip of large-funded Rocket Internet e-commerce services in Southeast Asia, such as Lazada and Zalora, has made a number of other e-commerce services consolidate to become strong competitors. MoxyBilna is one of them.

MoxyBilna was formed based on a common market share. Bilna, which initially targeted the mother and child market, has now expanded to the market for household goods. Moxy itself is an e-commerce service that focuses on women's products, including products for children and babies. Moxy, formerly WhatsNew, launched in Indonesia about 7 months ago.

Statistically, women in the region are the main drivers of online shopping, with 63% browse products and services at least once a day, while 49% now choose to shop online rather than offline. Every report and survey about e-commerce in Indonesia always places women's products at the top for the most sought-after product segment.

In his statement, Fichet said, "This partnership will make MoxyBilna a leading e-commerce player in the [Southeast Asia] region. Bilna's strong position and footprint in Indonesia, combined with Moxy's strength in the women's product e-commerce ecosystem in Thailand and Indonesia, will shape a serious entity that is becoming 'the #1 women's shopping destination in Southeast Asia'."

Tenka added, "With this move, we have doubled our purchasing power and transaction volume, together establishing much more meaningful economies of scale and making it easier for us to offer better things to our consumers. By becoming a joint entity, we are now well positioned in the marketplace. Thailand and Indonesia to accelerate growth and expansion [to other countries] within 18 months."

After the merger, Moxy's operations in Indonesia will be held by Bilna, while Bilna's platform and operations will become benchmarking for group expansion to other countries. The Bilna office in Jakarta will be the operational center of MoxyBilna and we have confirmation that this will not happen layoffs as a result of this merger because they are undergoing a massive expansion.

Bilna has twice announced funding acquisitions, the last time being about two years ago, and it is mentioned that Facebook Co-Founder Eduardo Saverin is also investing in the service. Ferry Tenka himself is the Co-Founder of Disdus which was acquired by Groupon and became Groupon Indonesia.

In 2016, the consolidation trend will be an attractive ingredient for the development of a more solid startup ecosystem, both for the Indonesian market and the Southeast Asian market in general.