Go-Jek Lands Massive Payday in Recent Funding Round

Go-Jek might be well-described as the Indonesian Uber, if it weren’t for the inconvenient fact that Uber already has an Indonesian presence. It’s enough that they work in the same field, and a recent move should give Uber pause going forward. Go-Jek managed to raise a whopping $1.5 billion in a recent fundraising round, which is actually an amount larger than Go-Jek was looking to land.

The fundraising round in question featured a dozen investors, from BlackRock to Google, and gives Go-Jek the necessary resources to take on some of the greats in the field. Go-Jek was actually hoping to bring in $1.2 billion, which means the company raised about 25 percent more than it expected.

This puts it on par with some of the leaders in the field; the largest ride-hailing company in southeast Asia, Grab, weighs in at just over $6 billion, which means Go-Jek should be able to take on the established firms. Given that incentives for both drivers and customers are common in the region—they’re used mainly as a way to build loyalty on both ends—having extra cash in the war chest will go a long way toward providing those incentives.

It’s not just about big numbers, either; Go-Jek offers many other services to make it about more than catching a quick ride. It offers food delivery, logistics support and even payments. Since Go-Jek has effectively built a digital ecosystem—as noted by Forrester senior analyst Xiaofeng Wang—it’s an increasingly attractive proposition to its investors.

Best of all, Go-Jek is planning several expansions into other Indonesian cities, which means it will not only need that expanded cash flow, but it will also have a chance to make profit off that investment fairly soon. Ride-hailing is one of the greatest uses of mobile payments around—you get in the car, you pay for it from your phone, you go to your destination—and Go-Jek is poised to take full advantage of that development.

With its own mobile payments system, Go-Pay, in place and a big new slug of operating capital in its pocket, it’s a safe bet that Go-Jek will be one of the biggest names in Indonesia soon. Given that Indonesia is the fourth most populous nation on Earth, that could well be enough to make a business on.