Bukalapak, an online marketplace company from Indonesia, will soon announce a new round of funding, according to reports.
Naver Corp. is said to be one of the investors, as well as Ant Financial, which is the finance arm of Alibaba. Ant Financial already holds a minority stake in Bukalapak, so the new round will be in addition to what’s already been given.
Bukalapak, when contacted, said it planned to issue a press release soon.
Bukalapak’s biggest shareholder is Indonesian media company Emtek, which had a 36.86 percent stake in the company in September of 2018. The two companies also develop technology together, including a payments platform called DANA, which Bukalapak uses.
Bukalapak has been branching out more into financial services areas, like loans, credit, insurance and mutual fund and gold investments. The company also plans to expand with more investment products, as well as in areas like P2P lending and remittance payments.
In addition, the company has started working with traditional mom-and-pop type stores in Indonesia – approximately 300,000 – to act as a go-between with the company, and then charging a commission. It will also use IDR 1 billion ($71,000) to start a partner program called Bukalapak’s Partners.
The last time the company raised money was at the end of 2017, when it got an undisclosed amount of money from Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC. Bukalapak, in that round, was valued at more than $1 billion.
As the company recently celebrated its ninth anniversary, Founder and CEO Achmad Zaky said innovation is the key to driving the business forward.
Investor Naver Corp. is also behind messaging outfit LINE. That AI software platform was developed with Naver Corp., which also runs a search engine. While LINE is mainly a messaging app, customers use it to read the news, get taxi rides and find part-time work.
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