Editor’s letter: Is Shopee the Thanos to Indonesia’s Avengers?

Dear readers,

Willson Cuaca, co-founder of East Ventures and an early backer of Tokopedia, once used this colorful analogy to describe Sea Group, Southeast Asia’s largest internet company:

“Sea is like Thanos, massive and powerful and is able to take down half of the world, or in this case, half the startups,” said Cuaca, as quoted by PingWest.

“Like the Avengers, companies need to band together if they want to ensure their survival and win the war.” (No doubt, Sea will have something to say about that characterization.)

Two companies that have joined forces are Gojek and Tokopedia – which have announced a merger to form GoTo.

Tokopedia was the focus of our top story last week. While local ecommerce marketplaces in the region have fallen behind Shopee and Lazada, the Indonesian ecommerce giant has been an exception.

By some metrics, it’s standing toe to toe with Shopee, and by others, it’s clearly the number two option in the country. We went into the reasons why it has been able to sustain this momentum.

Image credit: Timmy Loen

Here are more premium stories we published last week (to read them, you’ll need to subscribe).

• GudangAda serves up more sensational numbers as it inches closer to profitability
• Tech in Asia Explains: The emergence of BNPL in Southeast Asia
• Visualizing the rapid rise of Southeast Asia’s startup hubs
• AirAsia’s logistics arm eyes raising up to $100m to cover more ground and air
• Indian startup makes software for factory workers, eyes Southeast Asia next

To infinity and beyond

Last week, we also released a couple of premium articles explaining the hit blockchain game Axie Infinity and dispelled the notion that it is a Ponzi scheme. We were among the first to write about Sky Mavis, the company behind the game.

Being a bit of a gamer myself, I had to experience Axie Infinity. So, over the weekend, I bought some axies, the digital creatures that you battle with in the game, which didn’t come cheap (it doesn’t help that you need a minimum of three to get started either).

Although I’ll need to play it more to form a conclusion, I can say that you’ll need some working knowledge of crypto to get started – that, and the cost involved, would deter most gamers.