JAKARTA -- Indonesian e-commerce unicorn Tokopedia has secured around $500 million from Singapore's state investment agency Temasek as part of the startup's latest funding round, DealStreetAsia has learned.
The country's largest online marketplace is currently in talks with existing investors including Softbank Vision Fund and Alibaba Group Holding, as well as U.S. internet companies as part of this round, and plans to raise an additional $500 million to $1 billion, an executive said. Another executive added that that the deal with Temasek had given Tokopedia a pre-money valuation of about $7.5 billion.
Tokopedia did not respond to a request for comment, and Temasek said it did not comment on market speculation.
Earlier this year, the Financial Times reported that Tokopedia was in talks with its existing investors to raise up to $1.5 billion.
Tokopedia is considered to be one of the leaders in Indonesia's ultra-competitive e-commerce space, in which several other unicorns also operate, including Bukalapak, Lazada and Shopee. Alibaba has a controlling stake in Lazada and has also invested in Bukalapak.
Meanwhile, JD.ID, the Indonesian operation of Chinese e-commerce major JD.com, earlier this year claimed to have also passed the $1 billion valuation mark.
These companies have been both the drivers and beneficiaries of Indonesia's e-commerce boom. According to a report by Google and Temasek, Indonesia's e-commerce market will be worth a total of $82 billion by 2025, making up almost two-thirds of the country's digital economy.
According to statistics from online shopping aggregator iPrice, Tokopedia and Shopee currently sit at the top of the Indonesian e-commerce leader board in terms of web visits and app downloads.
Tokopedia's growth in Indonesia has been largely fuelled by the backing of its well-heeled investors, including Alibaba, Sequoia Capital India and SoftBank Vision Fund, which led its last $1.1-billion round in December 2018, valuing the company at $7 billion.
Tokopedia, which claims to have more than 90 million monthly active users, is one of the companies that have seen an uptick in activity amid the COVID-19 pandemic and widespread lockdowns. However, the company hit the headlines for negative reasons in May when it emerged that the details of as many as 91 million of its users had been leaked online.
The company is investigating the matter and says it has since ensured that "crucial information such as passwords remains successfully protected behind encryption".
For the original story from DealStreetAsia, click here.
DealStreetAsia is a financial news site based in Singapore that focuses on corporate investment activity in Asia especially Southeast Asia and India. Nikkei owns a majority stake in the company
