E-commerce group Alibaba has entered talks to lead a funding round sized at up to $500m for Indonesia-based online marketplace Tokopedia, Bloomberg reported yesterday.
Founded in 2009, Tokopedia operates a platform where individuals and online merchants can buy and sell goods from each other, a business model similar to that of Alibaba’s own Taobao offering.
The prospective round would include telecommunications firm SoftBank and venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, the investors that provided $100m in funding for Tokopedia in 2014.
Another large China-based e-commerce firm, JD.com, had been in talks concerning a nine-figure investment in Tokopedia as of May this year, according to Bloomberg, but those appear to have stalled.
SoftBank led the 2014 round through subsidiary SoftBank Internet and Media, and also invested through another unit, SB Pan Asia Fund. Reports in April 2016 suggested Tokopedia had secured another $147m from undisclosed backers, though they were not confirmed.
Prior to 2014, the company had raised an undisclosed amount from another SoftBank unit, Softbank Ventures Korea, as well as CyberAgent Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of internet company CyberAgent, e-commerce firm Beenos, Indonusa Dwitama and East Ventures.
The deal would follow the $2bn Alibaba invested in another Southeast Asian e-commerce company, Lazada, across rounds in April 2016 and June this year.
The transactions, made up of a combination of primary and secondary investments, gave Alibaba an 83% stake in the Singapore-based company, and given its willingness to fund companies in other areas, the Tokopedia investment could end up being the first of many it makes in the region.