Special Report: GoTo and the Super App Wars

GoTo, Sea, Grab and the battle for supremacy in Southeast Asia

My name is Mikal — I’m an early-stage tech investor and I was born in Asia, grew up in Africa and now live in the US. Every week I break down a fast-growing business in an emerging market to understand its product, market and growth strategy.

This week I’m breaking down the merger of Indonesian startups Gojek and Tokopedia. This piece was originally published here.

This week the Super App Wars in Southeast Asia reached a new level of competitive intensity. The long-rumoured merger between Indonesian ecommerce retailer Tokopedia (which I wrote about earlier this year) and Indonesian ridesharing and delivery giant GoJek was finally publicly announced. The new combined entity, called GoTo, will be valued at $18 billion and combines the forces and resources of two of Indonesia’s biggest startups.

The merger of GoJek and Tokopedia will create one of the largest technology companies in the world:

• Total Group Gross Transaction Value (GTV) of over $22 billion in 2020
• Over 1.8 billion transactions in 2020
• Total registered driver fleet of over two million as of December 2020
• Over 11 million merchant…