Category: Enterprise

Go-Jek is Indonesia’s first ‘Decacorn’

Indonesia now welcomes its first new deca-corn.

Homegrown ride-hailing platform Go-Jek’s valuation has exceeded the US$10 billion mark, at least according to research institution CB Insights, in its Global Unicorn Club report.

Go-Jek’s corporate affairs chief Nila Martia responded to the news, saying that “we are grateful that there is an independent institution that validates our success in boosting our company value, without us having to make an announcement.”

Unicorn, Decacorn

To clarify, a unicorn is a startup which valuation has reached or exceeded US$1 billion, while a deca-corn uses the Greek word ‘deca’ to represent ten.

For the ride-hailing unicorn, this post-money valuation of US$9 to US$10 billion comes with its latest Series F round in February from investors including Google, China’s JD.com, and Tencent.

While there were media reports stating that Go-Jek is still a few million shy of the mark, Go-Jek did indeed manage to get the recognition of international research institution CB Insights.

In its report The Global Unicorn Club, CB Insights listed Go-Jek in the 19th position among the listing which compared startups around the world, with a valuation of US$10 billion.

This ranking places it below its Singapore-based rival Grab at US$11 billion, while Uber is still in the top position with a total valuation of US$72 billion.

Duel of Two Decacorns in Southeast Asia

Go-Jek and Grab

After Uber pulled out from the region last year, it has been left to Go-Jek and Grab battling for supremacy in the Southeast Asian market.

Since then, both companies have been active in raising fundings to rapidly expand in everything from mobile payments to food delivery across the region, looking to dominate with a so-called super app.

Go-Jek raised more than US$1 billion in continuous funding round from a clutch of internet giants including Google, JD.com Inc., and Tencent Holdings Ltd. The Indonesian startup has presented a challenge for Grab, marching into its home market of Singapore as well as Vietnam and Thailand.

The situation is similar for Grab, as it recently raised about US$1.5 billion from the SoftBank Vision Fund to expand its new services across the Southeast Asia region, having introduced Grab Kitchen that targets merchants as well.

Moving forward, it will likely develop into a battle of food orders and e-payments, as well as a snatch for dominance in the Southeast Asia territory.

What Awaits for the New Decacorn

Go-Jek

For Go-Jek, this valuation reflects the confidence that the company will continue to grow.

“The success of Go-Jek’s on-demand service platform is seen from the stronger interest and trust of investors towards the mission, development as well as soaring economic and social impact of Go-Jek over time,” said Nila.

Moving forward, Go-Jek was not only focusing on becoming the main choice and furnishing the best services for users in the country, but also determined to make Indonesia the leading player in the Southeast Asia market.

An initial public offering remains a long-term aim for Go-Jek but it is not in our immediate future, and Nila adds that “our focus is on growing the business and serving our users and partners in the countries we operate in.”

Go-Jek has the highest market share among e-commerce service providers seen from the average active user application per week (weekly active users), based on the data from a global platform that analyzes the use of mobile applications worldwide.

“The number of Go-Jek weekly active users is 55 percent higher than similar applications in Indonesia, based on data from the same analysis platform,” said Marita.

Equis to sell entire stake in green energy platform Energon, exit from India

Renewable energy developer and infrastructure investor Equis Energy is looking to sell its entire India portfolio after a strategic review of its renewable energy portfolio in Asia.

The portfolio is made of two green energy platform, Energon and Energon Soleq, which amounts to almost a gigawatt of wind and solar energy installations.

Energon has 414 megawatts of operating assets which focus on wind power projects, while Energon Soleq works in the solar sector and is developing projects totaling 260 megawatts in Telangana and Karnataka.

Besides, Equis Energy has another 300 megawatts of capacity under development which is also up for sale.

“Equis Fund has put up Energon and Energon Soleq for sale. It is seeing a lot of interest. The exercise is underway as part of their Asia portfolio strategy with them planning to run an auction process,” said a source from Livemint who requested anonymity.

Another source confirmed the development and also adds that there are several firms who expressed interest in Equis’ assets.

The plan to sell is a result of the growing consolidation in India’s green energy sector as well as the declining energy tariffs which bring a concern to the uphold of electricity offtake commitments.

Established in 2012, Equis Energy has 4.7 gigawatts of renewable energy generation assets across Asia-Pacific, with an additional 6.3 gigawatts under development in Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Thailand.

The clean energy firm has earlier appointed Credit Suisse (Singapore) Limited and JP Morgan (SEA) Limited to conduct its strategic review, with a particular focus on its renewable energy portfolio in mid-April.

David Russell, the board chairman of Equis said, “Equis is considering a restructuring of its entire renewable energy business with long-term investors looking to support management’s growth strategy. The process involves a 100% restructuring of Equis Energy.”

Baidu said to make US$100 million investment in Chinese electric car startup NextEV

Chinese Internet firm Baidu Inc. reportedly plans to invest US$100 million in smart electric vehicle technology maker NextEV as part of a Series C funding. Details of the deal have not been made public.

Baidu is now betting big on artificial intelligence to spur its future development. As the alliance is an effort intended to boost Baidu’s faltering autonomous driving business that has been witnessing falling profits.

Previously, the internet giant has set up an Institute of Deep learning in 2013, marking the beginnings of its research and development on unmanned driving technology.

However, Baidu has failed to yield concrete results despite its tie-ups with car makers such as BMW and Chery Automobile over the past three years. The exit of its core team members including senior vice president Wang Jin, who was in charge of the autonomous car division, worsened the already muddy prospects.

As the first company tapping into unmanned vehicles in China, Baidu claims that it has no intention to build cars but instead will focus on unmanned driving technology-related software, providing sensor modules and self-driving car brain to its partners. The collaboration with NextEV is in line with such strategy.

It recently established a business unit to focus on self-driving technology and appointed its newly hired chief operation officer Lu Qi as the head of the unit, signaling the importance Baidu is placing on the sector.

Founded in 2014 by Chinese automobile web portal Bitauto’s chairman William Li, NextEV is committed to the research, development, and production of high-performance electric sports cars. The Shanghai-headquartered company has offices in Europe and the United States, with more than 2,500 employees around the world. Last year, it launched the first electric car – the NIO EP9 in London.

The super racing car EP9 was said to be the world’s fastest electric car and the company plans to produce only six vehicles for some of the company’s early backers, including company founder Li, Tencent founder Pony Ma, Xiaomi founder Lei Jun, JD.com founder Liu Qiangdong and two others.

Prior to this, the electric vehicle startup has raised more than US$600 million via three funding rounds since June 2015, having backed by top global investors including Singapore’s Temasek Holdings, private equity giant TPG, China’s Lenovo Group and Sequoia Capital among some.

Following this tie-up with Baidu, NextEV would be able to utilize Baidu’s autonomous driving technology in its mass market electric vehicles. In the near future, the startup plans to launch a mass market electric vehicle priced at about half of Tesla’s Model S, which will start it at RMB620,000 (about US$90,000) in China.

As electric vehicles and unmanned driving technologies have been changing industry rules and profit distribution patterns in the automobile manufacturing sector, an increasing number of startups are joining the commercially viable market said to worth US$87 billion by 2030, according to research and advisory firm Lux Research.

By Vivian Foo, Next Unicorn

IFM Investors to acquire minority stakes in Australian fashion handbag and accessories retailer Colette by Colette Hayman

IFM Investors‘ private equity arm has recently invested an undisclosed sum for a minority stake in Colette by Colette Hayman, a leading fashion handbags and accessories retailer based in Australia.

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed but IFM Investors Executive Director Stuart Wardman-Browne announced that IFM’s partnership with the company’s founders and senior management would help the business continue its growth path.

“We are excited to partner with Colette as it seeks to further expand in Australia and offshore. With the strong experience of its leadership team, niche value proposition, on-trend products and proven retail nous, we believe Colette is well positioned to execute on its next phase of growth,” Wardman-Browne said.

Founded in 2010 by Mark and Colette Hayman, Collete by Collete Hayman has grown to a network of over 130 company-owned stores across Australia and New Zealand as well as several franchise locations across South Africa and the Middle East.

“We feel there are opportunities to add stores to that footprint both here and in New Zealand,” Mr. Wardman-Browne said. “They’ve been quite successful in a refit program in a number of stores which has helped them increase sales.”

Owned by 28 super funds including the country’s biggest funds AustralianSuper, IFM Investors has a well-established presence in private equity and provides institutional investors with a flexible and transparent platform to access private equity investments.

Its private equity model benefits investee companies through an openness to taking minority or majority stakes, flexible investment horizons, and the ability to continue committing follow-on capital as required for growth.

“This transaction is a perfect example of how our private equity approach can benefit companies through long-term investment coupled with a partnership-style approach including pro-active support on strategic initiatives to help the continued growth of the business,” said Wardman-Browne. “It also benefits our investors as they have greater involvement in, and transparency of, their private equity investment.”

As an investor-owned global fund manager, IFM Investors has A$75 billion under management. IFM Investors’ private equity team seeks to invest in growing businesses in Australia and New Zealand with a value of between $50 million to $300 million. This transaction follows the acquisition of 50 per cent of leading contractor group ISGM in June.

Commenting on the investment, Mark Hayman, the CEO of Colette by Colette Hayman said, “The partnership with IFM represents an exciting development for us as we embark on our next phase of growth in Australasia and internationally. We look forward to working closely with IFM to realise our vision for the Colette by Colette Hayman brand.”

By Vivian Foo, Unicorn Media

Korean ST Unitas to acquire the Princeton Review

ST Unitas, Korea’s largest operator of private learning institutes on February 14 announced that it has acquired the Princeton Review, a major U.S. education service firm, as its first step toward becoming a global powerhouse in the expanding online-based exam preparation market.

“We are happy to announce that ST Unitas and the Princeton Review have become one family,” said Yoon Sung-Hyuk, ST Unitas’s CEO. “We will together build a global education platform that offers innovative, information-technology based, tailored services to our users across the globe.”

Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed though predicaments according to investment bank analysts states that ST Unitas would have to pay about 100 billion won (US$87 million) to acquire the Massachusets-based platform.

Founded in April 2010, ST Unitas is the first in the industry to develop scientific studying methods based on big data from 60 subsidiary brands which are ranked number one in their respective division including Engdangi (English cram school) and Gongdangi (Civil Service Exam cram school), which utilize IT in education.

The education firm offers English, Chinese, and other foreign language courses as well as various civil-service tests in addition to a range of lectures which are available both online and offline. Consequently, ST Unitas reached over 1200 employees and annual sales of $350 million (400 billion won) in 2016.

The Princeton Review, founded in 1981, is a college admission services company offering test preparation services, tutoring, and admissions resources, online courses, and books. Besides the United States, it has sent more than 1.5 million students to elite colleges in 20 countries.

“We believe that now is the right time for us to enter the United States, the world’s largest education market. The U.S. online education industry has been expanding rapidly over the past five years,” Yoon said. “Given that the majority of IT platforms that dominate the global market, such as Facebook and Uber, were born in the United States, we decided to create our platform in the world’s largest economy. This is another reason why we decided to acquire The Princeton Review.”

Following this acquisition, the CEO said ST Unitas will take advantage of the U.S. education service firm’s vast database, its extensive overseas network as well as its knowhows on the scholastic aptitude test (SAT) and other standardised U.S. exams to become a leader in the $250 billion online education market.

“We have been successful in Korea because we work hard to offer top-quality education materials to our customers at affordable prices,” Yoon said. “What we would like to do is take this business model in cooperation with The Princeton Review to the United States and other countries. I have no doubt ST Unitas will become a top global education platform provider.”

The Princeton Review CEO Kate Walker said that in cooperation with ST Unitas, the company will continue to expand its market share and secure technology leadership in the rapidly growing online education market.

By Vivian Foo, Unicorn Media

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