Go-Jek ramps up war on Uber and Grab with $550m funding

Photo credit: Go-Jek.

As ride-hailing apps like Uber, Didi, and Grab pull in huge rounds of funding, Indonesia’s Go-Jek, which specializes in motorbikes, is not being left out of the action.

Go-Jek this morning revealed it has secured US$550 million in funding. It’s the Jakarta-based startup’s biggest round of disclosed funding – and the biggest ever in Indonesia’s burgeoning tech startup industry.

Nadiem Makarim (right), founder and CEO of Go-Jek, pictured last year at Tech in Asia Jakarta.

The fresh cash comes nearly 10 months after Go-Jek last raised from VCs. The previous round was of an undisclosed amount.

Revving up for Southeast Asia

Go-Jek started out with motorcycle-hailing, banding together thousands of the Indonesian capital’s bike pilots in a manner similar to Uber. The company later expanded into on-demand services like parcel couriers, food deliveries, cleaners, and massages. In April it took on Uber and Grab head-on with the launch of Go-Car.

The startup today teased expansion “potentially across the region,” referring to Southeast Asia.

Jakarta is notorious for some of the worst traffic conditions in the world. That made motorbike taxis a popular option before Go-Jek came along and Uber-ized them. Photo credit: Ikhlasul Amal.

The investors in this huge new Go-Jek round are KKR, Warburg Pincus, Farallon Capital, Capital Group Private Markets, “as well as existing shareholders and other international investors,” says today’s statement. It also reveals for the first time that Rakuten Ventures was among prior investors.

Nadiem Makarim, Go-Jek’s co-founder and CEO, says the startup now has “more than 200,000 motorcycle and car driver partners, more than 35,000 Go-Food merchants whose businesses we helped grow, and more than 3,000 service providers on our other on-demand services.”

See more on Go-Jek:

• Go-Jek’s critical numbers leaked. Here’s its response
• Go-Jek saw bookings explode 100-fold last year
• Go-Jek’s tips to build and scale a successful on-demand startup