Page 27 - Forbes - Asia (March 2020)
P. 27
TECHNOLOGY
By Ulisari Eslita and Ester Christine Natalia Photograph by Ully Zulkarnain for Forbes Indonesia
Game Changer
25
WILLIAM TANUWIJAYA built Tokopedia into Southeast Asia’s third-largest unicorn,
and he’s not done yet.
an estimated 222 trillion rupiah last year ($16 bil-
lion). It has about 90 million users, roughly one-
third the country’s population of 260 million. To-
kopedia’s business model is similar to Alibaba's, a
marketplace where any business can easily set up
W kopedia’s biggest investors). To date, Tokopedia
and sell their goods (and Alibaba is now one of To-
has 7 million merchants on its site, from small en-
trepreneurial firms all the way to large local firms
and multinationals. To further boost growth,
Tanuwijaya last year made a major acquisition,
buying the Indonesian e-commerce site Bridesto-
ry and its related Parentstory last June for a re-
William Tanuwijaya, the ported $30 million. The two sites offer goods and
cofounder of Indonesian e-commerce giant To- services for soon-to-be newlyweds and parents.
kopedia, says he had little love of his company’s Tanuwijaya isn’t slowing down. In the last few
name for years. “I actually disliked the name To- years, Tanuwijaya, who is CEO, has been expand-
kopedia because it was too long. We initially used ing Tokopedia far beyond its core e-commerce
it only as a project name,” says Tanuwijaya. “We services, into areas such as fintech, travel book-
wanted to change it on our fifth or sixth anniver- ings and logistics. In 2018, he launched an am-
sary, but we still could not find any better name. bitious plan to entrench Tokopedia even more
What can I say? It’s serendipity.” deeply into the Indonesia’s $1 trillion economy,
Now Tokopedia’s name is hard to miss. It is the largest in Southeast Asia.
part of Jakarta’s skyline, plastered in one story- That year Tokopedia launched the app Mitra
high letters across the top of Tokopedia Tower, Tokopedia, which has been downloaded more
a 52-storey building in central Jakarta, which Tokopedia Tower, than 1 million times. The app is designed for own-
a 52-story building
serve as the company’s headquarters (Tanuwi- in central Jakarta, ers of warung, a small open-air store that typical-
jaya’s office is also on the top floor). Jakartans which serves as ly serve a single neighborhood—of which there
the company’s
can see it both day and especially at night, when headquarters. are an estimated two million across the country.
the bright green letters are lit up. The app gives warung
Another hard-to-miss aspect of Tokopedia is owners two big advan-
its $7 billion valuation, making it the third most- tages: one is to order
valuable unicorn in Southeast Asia, behind only goods for their warung
Singapore’s Grab and Indonesia’s Gojek, accord- that will be delivered at
ing to U.S. consultancy CB Insights. Tokopedia prices lower than what
also has a huge lead over its next closest Indone- they pay local distribu-
COURTESY OF TOKOPEDIA also in value, at about $2 billion, less than one- fer products from Toko-
tors, and second is to of-
sian rival, Bukalapak, by almost every metric and
pedia to customers, es-
third that of Tokopedia.
Tanuwijaya, 38, has been building Tokopedia
pecially those too poor
at a feverish pace. Its gross merchandise volume
to afford smartphones
(GMV) has grown 100-fold in the last five years, to
F ORBES A SIA
MAR CH 2020 or internet services.
