Last week, two of Indonesia’s largest startup companies, Gojek and Tokopedia confirmed that they will be merging to form GoTo Group with a deal of US$18 billion to US$22 billion. The merger is said to be Indonesia’s largest with a combined entity of over 100 million monthly active users, 11 million merchant partners, and more than 2 million registered drivers.

GoTo was reported to have registered a transaction of more than 1.8 billion in the year 2020 and together, conquered 2% of Indonesia’s GDP. Moreover, both companies’ executives explained that the plan to implement the merge as a strategy to compete with the two Southeast Asian giants, Grab and Shopee.

With Shopee’s recent launch of its food-delivery feature in Indonesia this year, it became a direct competition with Tokopedia for Indonesia’s market share.

After the announcement of the merger, GoTo Group proclaimed its plans to start a round of fundraising before its initial public offering (IPO) launch before the end of this year. Moving on, during the talk with financial institutions and sovereign wealth funds, GoTo emphasized its scheme to use Gojek as means of transport for Tokopedia packages for customers paid with the group’s e-wallet.

The merge creates shared data resources and customer that makes their services more efficient and cheaper throughout the country. User engagement is also expected to increase with its services after assembling more into one single app, GoPay.

Some people familiar with the merger claimed that an estimate of US$40 billion could be reflected on Gojek and Tokopedia’s recent financial performance. Subsequently after the merge, the two companies, Gojek and Tokopedia will remain in operation as a separate unit under the GoTo Group.