Ride-hailing service Go-Jek, Indonesia’s first billion-dollar tech startup, has agreed to acquire three local fintech firms as it seeks to expand its grip on the digital payments market.
The deals involve Kartuku, a leading offline payments processing company in Indonesia; Midtrans, said to be the nation’s top online payment gateway; and Mapan, a community-based savings and lending network, Go-Jek announced in a statement today. The company declined to disclose the value of the deals.
E27 reports, post-deal, the CEOs of each of the three acquired businesses will take senior management positions at the Go-Jek group, with Aldi Haryopratomo of Mapan leading Go-Pay, Ryu Suliawan of Midtrans leading the group’s merchant platform, and Thomas Husted of Kartuku taking on the role of Go-Jek Group CFO.
Collectively, Kartuku, Midtrans and Mapan process close to US$5 billion of debit card, credit card and digital wallet transactions for its users, services providers and merchants.
The ride-hailing giant says these acquisitions will enable it to provide an inclusive payment ecosystem for financial institutions, enterprises and SMEs, as well as banked and unbanked consumers.
Ecommerce spend in Indonesia this year amounts to over US$7 billion, shows Statista data.
Nadiem Makarim, Founder and CEO of Go-Jek, said “We are now taking Go-Jek to the next stage.”
The acquisitions – combined – are Go-Jek’s biggest so far, Makarim told Tech in Asia, and marks a significant step in the company’s plan to dominate the payments space, where it’s facing off against Southeast Asia juggernaut Grab.
“This is in line with the Indonesian government’s aspiration for the country to become the largest digital economy in Southeast Asia by 2020,” he added, as reported by e27.
Started in 2015, Go-Jek is a ride-hailing, food delivery, logistics and digital wallet company with 900,000 drivers, more than 125,000 merchants and over 100 million transactions processed through its platform per month.
