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PT Bukalapak.com surges 25% on market debut

written by Bella Palmer
bukalapak

The firm raised $1.5 billion in Indonesia's biggest IPO, valuing it at $6 billion

PT Bukalapak.com shares surged 25% on their market debut on Friday as investors scrambled to get a piece of the country's fourth-largest e-commerce company.

Shares in Indonesia's first listed tech unicorn finished at 1,060 rupiah ($0.0738) after reaching the 25% limit minutes after opening, with tens of thousands of investors buying shares on online platforms such as Ajaib and Stockbit, after the firm raised $1.5 billion in Indonesia's biggest initial public offering (IPO), valuing it at $6 billion.

This event will create a snowballing effect and show the path for more Indonesia listings, said Willson Cuaca, a co-founder and managing partner at East Ventures, an Indonesia-focused venture capital firm.

The listing by the e-commerce platform, whose backers include Ant Group and Singapore sovereign fund GIC, has fuelled excitement in the startup community.

We initially ran a non-deal roadshow for 10 days in a row and I was literally having 11-12 meetings every day from 8 till 11 at night and these had to get extended as there was so much more interest, Bukalapak's president, Teddy Oetomo, a former banker, told Reuters in an interview.

He likened Bukalapak's business to Canadian e-commerce company Shopify, which also works with brick-and-mortar retailers.

Bukalapak's stellar debut raised its market value to $7.5 billion, placing it among Indonesia's 15 biggest companies.

Bukalapak's IPO shows that there is a large and vibrant market for homegrown Indonesian unicorns, said Antonio Puno, head of Southeast Asia corporate finance at Bank of America, the joint global coordinators for the issue with UBS.

The company, which also counts Microsoft and local media and conglomerate Emtek Group among its backers, reported a 26% revenue spike to $96 million in 2020, up 26% on the year. The number of its registered users stood at 105 million.

Bukalapak works with 7 million agents, or "mitra", primarily street kiosks and mom-and-pop shops, which it connects to consumer goods distributors, narrowing their supply chain and the costs of their wares.

It focuses on areas outside top-tier cities in the archipelago, and ranks behind Tokopedia, Sea Ltd's Shopee and Alibaba's Lazada in the e-commerce segment in terms of market share and gross merchandise value.

Bukalapak increased its IPO size in multiple rounds and received nearly $6.5 billion of interest from institutional and retail investors. The IPO retail segment was doubled to 5%.

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