Tokopedia, an Indonesia-based e-commerce marketplace backed by e-commerce firm Alibaba and telecommunications and internet group SoftBank, has begun talks with to raise $1.5bn from potential investors, Bloomberg reported on Friday.
Existing investors are in the frame to invest as are undisclosed US-headquartered internet companies, according to people familiar with the matter, who said the company is aiming to raise $1bn to $1.5bn and that the round will likely close in the first quarter of 2020.
Founded in 2009, Tokopedia operates an online platform where merchants can open and run an e-commerce store for no charge. It had 5 million sellers signed up to the platform and 90 million monthly active users as of January this year.
The company has so far raised more than $2.3bn. SoftBank’s Vision Fund joined Alibaba to co-lead its last round, in which it raised $1.1bn in December 2018 at a valuation of roughly $7bn, with SoftBank Ventures Asia (then SoftBank Ventures Korea) and unnamed existing backers also taking part.
Alibaba had already led a $1.1bn round for the company the previous year that may have included SoftBank and venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, the investors that had supplied $100m in funding for Tokopedia three years earlier.
Internet company CyberAgent participated in funding rounds for Tokopedia in 2011 and 2013, and its earlier investors include e-commerce and internet company Beenos (then Netprice), financial services provider SBI and VC firm East Ventures.
The prospective round would probably be the last before Tokopedia goes public, the sources said. It is reportedly one of several Southeast Asian tech companies preparing initial public offerings in 2020, the others including ride hailing service Gojek and travel booking platform Traveloka.
Image courtesy of PT Tokopedia.
