JAKARTA, Indonesia — Bukalapak, one of Indonesia’s most popular e-commerce platforms, has launched a $1.5 billion initial public offering (IPO) that may put the company’s valuation at $6 billion. The business said on Friday that it will issue new shares representing 25% of the post-IPO company at a price range of 750 rupiah (5 cents) to 850 rupiah (10 cents) (almost 6 cents). Bukalapak would be the Indonesia Stock Exchange’s biggest-ever IPO if priced at the top of its range, fetching 21.9 trillion rupiah ($1.5 billion). The previous high was 12.2 trillion rupiah, which was raised in 2008 by big coal producer Adaro Energy. Bukalapak’s IPO prospectus did not provide a firm valuation, but a simple computation suggests a worth of $6 billion at the top of the price range. Following a three-day sale of shares to investors on July 28, the firm will begin trading on the IDX on August 6. Bukalapak stated that the proceeds will be used for working capital for the company and its subsidiaries. With its imminent IPO, Gojek, Tokopedia, and Traveloka, Indonesia’s four original unicorns and spearheads of the country’s digitization, will all become publicly traded, marking a watershed moment in the country’s tech sector development. Unicorns are private enterprises with a market capitalization of more than $1 billion. GoTo, which is merging Gojek and Tokopedia, plans to go public in the United States and Indonesia, while Traveloka is considering a SPAC (special purpose acquisition company) listing in the United States. Bukalapak began as an e-commerce platform, but it was one of the first to digitize Indonesia’s warung mom-and-pop shops, allowing them to offer online items and services like phone credits, as well as providing one-stop procurement. A unit of local media company Emtek, China’s Alibaba-affiliated Ant Group, and Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC are among its main shareholders. Following the IPO, they will own 23.93 percent, 13.05 percent, and 9.45 percent of the company, respectively. Microsoft and Standard Chartered Bank are among the other investors. According to the company’s financial statement filed on Friday, Bukalapak earned 1.3 trillion rupiah in revenue in 2020, up 25.5 percent from the previous year. The e-commerce sector produced 76 percent of income, while the e-warung business, which gets commissions from warung and merchants selling to them, contributed 14.7 percent. The rest came through BukaPengadaan, a company that provides procurement services to businesses. The company has been losing money for the past three years, but last year it was able to reduce its losses. Its net loss in 2020 was 1.3 trillion rupiah, down 51.7 percent from the previous year. In the near future, competition in Indonesia’s e-commerce industry is projected to heat up. Sea has a solid foothold in the archipelago with its e-commerce affiliate Shopee, while Tokopedia will be armed with fresh funding for expansion if GoTo goes public. Another startup vying for a piece of Indonesia’s fast-growing online commerce market is Lazada, which is funded by Chinese internet behemoth Alibaba. In an online investor presentation on Friday, Rachmat Kaimuddin, CEO of Bukalapak, said, “If we solely focus on e-commerce, it is still primarily centered in larger cities.” “E-commerce transactions still account for 70% of all transactions, despite the fact that big cities account for only 10% of the [Indonesian] population.” He went on to say that outside of those major cities, there is a sizable potential market. “Bukalapak’s goal is to create an online marketplace, then grow [it] by opening an offline network through [the e-warung company], which can be used as extra infrastructure,” he explained. “In addition, Bukalapak clients can become Bukalapak customers.” When asked if Bukalapak will seek a dual listing in the United States like GoTo, Kaimuddin avoided giving a direct answer. “Today’s priority,” he said, “is listing on the IDX.”/n
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