Indonesia’s Largest Startup Plans Dual Listing After CEO’s Departure

(Bloomberg) -- The new co-chief executive officers of Indonesia’s largest internet startup plan to take the company public, raising capital to support drives into key areas like financial services and food delivery.

Gojek Co-CEO Andre Soelistyo didn’t specify a timetable for an IPO when he briefed reporters on Thursday, but said it could be “a few years” away and was likely to be a dual listing. “We don’t have a set target yet when, but we’re already moving along,” he said.

Gojek would like to give the opportunity to Indonesian investors to participate, he said, adding that it was also considering a secondary listing in a yet-to-be-decided location.

Gojek is riding a wave in Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous country with 264 million people where smartphone adoption is exploding. The country is also home to other digital economy startups including Tokopedia and Bukalapak.

The company’s iconic founder and former CEO, Nadiem Makarim, is leaving the company to join the Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s cabinet as education minister.

While Makarim’s departure came as a surprise, concerns about continuity were largely quelled by the choice of two Gojek veterans, Soelistyo and Kevin Aluwi, to replace him. Makarim will relinquish all his executive or advisory roles in the company, but will remain as a passive shareholder of Gojek, Soelistyo said.

The co-CEOs said they will focus on three core parts of the business -- mobility, payments and financial services and food delivery -- rather than experimenting on peripheral areas.

“If a company gets to a specific point in their size, you need to switch gear and approach things differently,” Aluwi said.

Since co-founding Gojek, Aluwi, 33, has held a number of leadership roles across product and functional teams within the organization, and has used his experience in business intelligence to pioneer the use of data for decision-making across the Gojek business.

Soelistyo, 36, has overseen over $4 billion of fundraising, which attracted key investors including Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Tencent Holdings Ltd., Temasek Holdings Pte, KKR & Co. and Warburg Pincus. Prior to joining Gojek, he was an executive director at Northstar Group, Indonesia’s largest private equity firm.

“Nadiem is definitely the mercurial, charismatic founder type,” said Aluwi. “What Andre and I bring to the table is a much more measured, process-driven approach. We are at that point in the company’s life cycle that we need to transition from a startup to a really enduring company.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Yoolim Lee in Singapore at yoolim@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Edwin Chan at echan273@bloomberg.net, Colum Murphy

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