Telkomsel, a unit of Indonesia’s largest telecom operator Telkom, has invested an additional $300 million in ride-hailing and payments firm Gojek, the two firms said Monday, just months after the network provider wrote a $150 million check to the Southeast Asian firm.
The announcement comes amid Gojek working to seal a proposed merger with e-commerce platform Tokopedia. The $18 billion deal would result in a new entity called GoTo, according to media reports. Telkomsel’s investment today likely makes it one of GoTo’s top eight investors.
Gojek — which has raised over $3.45 billion to date from high-profile investors including Google, Facebook, PayPal, Visa, and Tencent — and Telkomsel said their strategic partnership will “open up new synergies as the two companies scale up digital services and deliver new, innovative solutions.”
The two firms have maintained a deal since 2018 to subsidize the cost of mobile data consumed by the ride-hailing firm’s driver partners.
With more than 170 million subscribers, Telkomsel is the largest telecom operator in Indonesia. In addition to ride-hailing, Gojek has expanded to several additional businesses, including digital payments and food delivery in Indonesia.
Today’s news follows a $150 million investment Telkomsel made in Gojek in November last year. The two firms have since integrated several aspects of their services to accelerate digitization of micro, small and medium enterprises and bringing greater cost savings for driver partners.
Some of these include integration of Telkomsel MyAds with GoBiz, which enables Gojek’s MSME partners to use MyAds to efficiently expand their outreach to Telkomsel users, and easy onboarding for Gojek MSME partners to become Telkomsel reseller partners through the DigiPOS Aja! Application.
The two firms also co-market gaming services through Telkomsel’s Dunia Games and GoPay in collaboration with Tencent, providing greater value for PUBGM users, they said.
“Telkomsel is optimistic that this latest investment will open more opportunities for society to access advanced digital technology-based innovations developed by homegrown companies,” said Telkomsel chief executive Setyanto Hantoro in a statement.
