Tokopedia

The idea for Tokopedia came in 2007 from William Tanuwijaya’s childhood in Pematangsiantar, North Sumatra, where as a keen reader he struggled to get new books. Two years later the company started with capital from an acquaintance.⁠[1]

On February 6, 2009, Victor, an investor who had entered the IT and internet business through Indonusa, executed the deed of establishment of PT Tokopedia, having registered the Tokopedia trademark himself in December 2008. Victor committed Rp 2.4 billion for an 80% stake, while William Tanuwijaya and Leontinus Alpha Edison received 10% each without putting in money.⁠[2]

In January 2010 East Ventures became Tokopedia’s first investor; Victor had funded the company’s early stages in 2009–2010.⁠[2]

In October 2014 Tokopedia raised $100 million in a round led by SoftBankSoftBank GroupSoftBank Group (SoftBank Group Corp.) is an investment holding company headquartered in Tokyo, founded by Masayoshi Son in 1981. Starting out as a distributor of personal computer software, it moved into the internet, broadband and mobile communications, and has since become an investment group centered on AI-related assets such as Arm, the SoftBank Vision Funds and OpenAI.Open the full entry Internet and Media, with participation from Sequoia CapitalSequoia CapitalSequoia Capital is a venture capital firm founded by Don Valentine in 1972, investing from the seed stage through the growth stage. Its historical investments include Apple, Cisco, Google, YouTube, Airbnb, and Stripe; in 2021 it introduced the Sequoia Capital Fund structure, which can continue to hold public securities, and in 2023 its regional businesses became independent brands and partnerships.Open the full entry and returning investor SB Pan Asia Fund; SoftBank and Sequoia added representatives to its board, and the money was to be used to acquire users and hire staff.⁠[3]

In August 2017 Alibaba led a $1.1 billion investment in Tokopedia and became a minority shareholder, with some undisclosed existing investors also taking part; Tokopedia’s early backers included East Ventures, CyberAgent and Beenos Partners.⁠[4]

In August 2018 Tokopedia said it had reached 93% of Indonesia’s sub-districts; by November that year the platform had around 4 million merchants.⁠[5]

In November 2018 Tokopedia officially launched the Mitra Tokopedia app, letting grocery stores, warung (stalls) and individual sellers sell digital products such as data packages, electricity tokens and game vouchers and buy wholesale goods to restock; users had to verify themselves with an ID photo and top up an escrow balance called Saldo Mitra.⁠[6]

The Office of the United States Trade Representative listed tokopedia.com in its 2018 Out-of-Cycle Review of Notorious Markets, which reflected information as of April 2019, describing it as one of Indonesia’s largest online marketplaces and saying some sellers of counterfeit products had allegedly operated on the site for as long as four years.⁠[7]

In November 2019 Tokopedia launched Tokopedia Salam, a section for Muslim customers developed with sharia banks, donation agencies and local brands, and then Tokopedia Umrah, a marketplace for licensed umrah travel agencies that started with 20 agencies offering more than 100 packages with 0 percent interest installments.⁠[8]

In May 2020 the cybersecurity research group Under the Breach said Tokopedia’s internal database had been breached in March by an unidentified party, affecting more than 15 million users, and a database of 91 million records was offered for sale on the dark web for $5,000. Company spokesperson Nuraini Razak confirmed an attempt to steal user data, said personal information such as passwords remained protected and said payment data such as credit card, debit card and e-wallet information was not affected.⁠[9]

The company’s CEO said it had discovered the theft on May 2, 2020, immediately informed all users and began an internal investigation, appointed independent institutions specializing in cybersecurity and was working with the government.⁠[10]

Tokopedia became a strategic shareholder of the e-wallet OVO with a 41.08% stake, renamed its merchant loan service Modal Toko in 2019 and launched its own P2P lending platform, Dhanapala, in August 2020. Its gross merchandise value reached $32 billion in 2020.⁠[1]

In September 2020 Nuraini Razak, Tokopedia’s vice president of corporate communications, said the platform had more than 9 million active merchants, with nearly 2 million added since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic; it served about 100 million active customers searching more than 350 million products and covered over 98 percent of Indonesia’s sub-districts.⁠[11]

In May 2021 Gojek and Tokopedia announced that they had combined to form GoTo Group, with Andre Soelistyo as group CEO and Patrick Cao as president. The group had gross transaction value of over $22 billion and more than 1.8 billion transactions in 2020, and over 11 million merchant partners as of December 2020.⁠[12]

The merger was announced in a YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry video on May 17; GoTo said its ecosystem represented 2% of Indonesia’s gross domestic product and planned listings in Jakarta and the United States.⁠[13]

On August 9, 2021, Gojek notified Indonesia’s Business Competition Supervisory Commission (KPPU) of its acquisition of PT Tokopedia; after finding the filing complete, KPPU began its assessment on November 4, 2021, and in February 2022 moved to a comprehensive assessment by a three-commissioner panel, expected to end on March 14, 2022.⁠[14]

In April 2022 GoTo listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange, pricing its shares at 338 rupiah and raising about $1.1 billion (IDR 15.8 trillion); the shares traded as high as 442 rupiah. The company had initially considered a dual listing but listed only in Indonesia.⁠[15]

On February 8, 2023, GoTo announced a shift from founder-led to professional management and created president roles for each business unit, with Melissa Siska Juminto leading the e-commerce business.⁠[16]

On October 4, 2023, TikTok suspended its e-commerce service in Indonesia to comply with a ban on social media platforms handling direct payments for online purchases. In December it announced a $1.5 billion investment, made over time, in an entity combining Tokopedia and TikTok Shop Indonesia, in which it would hold a 75.01% controlling stake while GoTo’s 24.99% would remain fixed; Tokopedia was to acquire TikTok Shop’s Indonesian business for $340 million.⁠[17]

TikTok was to pay about $840 million for 75.01% of the Tokopedia business, with Goldman SachsGoldman SachsGoldman Sachs is an American financial services group headquartered in New York whose businesses include investment banking, securities trading, asset management, and wealth management. It traces its origins to the commercial paper business Marcus Goldman founded in 1869; it listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1999 under the ticker GS and became a bank holding company in 2008. David Solomon serves as chairman and chief executive officer.Open the full entry advising GoTo; the companies said more than 90% of merchants served by the combined entity were micro, small and medium enterprises.⁠[18]

On January 31, 2024, GoTo and TikTok announced the completion of the transaction, combining the Tokopedia and TikTok Shop Indonesia businesses under the PT Tokopedia entity with TikTok holding a controlling stake; TikTok committed to invest over $1.5 billion in the enlarged entity over time without further diluting GoTo, which receives an ongoing e-commerce service fee from Tokopedia.⁠[19]

Under the deal, PT Tokopedia issued new shares worth $840 million to TikTok, giving it 75.01%, or 38.18 million shares, while GoTo held 24.99%; TikTok also bought business contracts and exclusive rights from Tokopedia for $340 million and gave Tokopedia a $1 billion promissory note that could be used for future working capital.⁠[20]

Tokopedia, Shopee, Lazada and Blibli were designated to withhold income tax from sellers: under Minister of Finance Regulation No. 37/2025, merchants with annual gross turnover above Rp 500 million were to prepay 0.5% of turnover, starting on August 1, 2026. In August 2026 the Indonesian government postponed the scheme without setting a new date.⁠[21]

On September 8, 2026, Commission VII of Indonesia’s House of Representatives held a hearing with TikTok and Tokopedia on complaints that TikTok Shop had frozen funds belonging to small sellers. Stephanie Susilo, executive director of Tokopedia and TikTok Shop Indonesia, said the companies had investigated 217 accounts involving about Rp 24 billion, of which Rp 16.7 billion was linked to verified fraud, and described the freezes as a security measure to protect buyers and sellers.⁠[22]

Tokopedia describes its mission as achieving economic equality digitally in Indonesia; its website lists about 12 million registered sellers and 638 million listed products, coverage of 99% of cities, and says 86.5% of sellers are new businesses.⁠[23]

Tokopedia: Official website: https://www.tokopedia.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[23]

X: Official account: https://x.com/tokopedia (opens in a new window)⁠[23]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Official account: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pt--tokopedia (opens in a new window)⁠[23]

YouTube: Official account: https://www.youtube.com/user/tokopedia (opens in a new window)⁠[23]

GoTo: Official website: https://www.gotocompany.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[19]