Facebook And PayPal Invest In Southeast Asian Ride-hailing Giant GoJek

Facebook and PayPal invest in Southeast Asian ride-hailing giant GoJek

by Alex Noah — 4 years ago in Business Ideas 2 min. read

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Facebook and PayPal have made investments in GoJek, linking Google and Tencent one of other high-tech technology companies which have backed the five-year-old Southeast Asian ride-hailing company which also provides food delivery and mobile payments.

Facebook, for that it’s the very first investment in a Indonesia-based company, also PayPal didn’t disclose the magnitude of the tests. GoJek told TechCrunch the Facebook and PayPal were engaging in its continuing Series F funding round, which attracts it complete raise-to-date to more than $3 billion.

For Facebook, which in April spent in India’s leading telecom operator Reliance Jio Platforms, financing GoJek unlocks an identical chance: Helping countless small companies — while locating a business model for WhatsApp, an advertisement-free immediate messaging service it possesses that’s utilized by over two billion customers .
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WhatsApp’s chief operating officer Matt Idima said the company would bring “millions of small businesses and customers they work with in the largest digital economy in Southeast Asia” with “the inevitable” GoJek.

“Most small businesses in Indonesia rely on cash due to the country’s large population. Digital payments are more secure than cash for both businesses and customers. And digital payments help more people participate in the economy and give businesses access to credit which is critical to business growth, ”he wrote in a blog post.

Indonesia is one of the largest Asian markets for Facebook. In April, Reuters reported that the social juggernaut was in talks with local fintech firms to launch a mobile payment service in the country. Facebook said today that the investment would “support Facebook and Gojek’s shared goal of empowering businesses and driving financial inclusion in the archipelago.”

PayPal, that last year spent in cash lender Tala before the startup’s launching in India, stated Wednesday’s commercial venture will allow the worldwide payments giant to”considerably grow” its scale and scope Southeast Asia.

“This new connection is just another positive step in our journey towards getting the global payments partner of choice, also helping to fuel international trade by joining the world’s top marketplaces and payment systems,” PayPal said in a statement.

GoJek, which revealed it had increased $1.2 billion in March to employees and was valued at roughly $10 billion, said it has gathered over 170 million consumers from Southeast Asia.

The organization, that competes using heavily-backed Singapore-headquartered Catch, stated in the time that it had raised almost $3 billion over recent years.