Indonesian ride-hailing giant Go-Jek has been showing its deep interest for India. The South East Asian Unicorn may back two more Indian startups – Rebel Foods (commonly known as Faasos) and Mobile Premier League or MPL.
In case, these investments get through then it would probably be the first investment in Indian consumer Internet firm. Previously, it had acquired four Indian tech firms C42 Engineering, Leftshift, Pianta and Codelgnition.
Citing sources, an ET report said that Go-Jek is in talks to set up a joint venture with Rebel, that may see $8-10 million initial investments from either side. The deal will make a gateway to South East Asia for the arguably number one cloud kitchen platform in India.
In return, Faasos will be able to leverage the booming food business of Go-Jek in Indonesia. For instance, Go-Jek foodtech biz Go-Food had claimed to deliver 529 million food and drink orders across the country in 2018.
Besides, it had a merchant base of 300,000 till December 2018.
On the contrary, Indian food business particularly dominated by Zomato and Swiggy’s combined yearly delivery orders may not have crossed the aforementioned figure in 2018.
Currently, both firms are delivering around 30 million orders on a monthly basis.
Further, the report revealed that one of the senior executives from Rebel Foods will head the joint venture.
Concurrently, Go-Jek has a $30 million investment plan for the e-sports gaming app MPL. The investment will give much-needed firepower to the Bengaluru-based startup to fight against incumbents like Tencent-backed Dream11.
With the latest capital infusion, the Sequoia and Times Internet-backed startup will be valued at around $150 million.
For Go-Jek, the company has a decent presence in India with a dedicated tech team based out of Bengaluru since November 2016.
In early 2018, media reports suggested that it may launch its bike-taxi service in India starting with Gurugram or South India. However, the talks did not get materialised and it may take some more time to launch the operation.
