Indonesia's Go-Jek secures US$550 million in new funding

Indonesia's motorbike taxi app company Go-Jek has raised US$550 million in new funding.According to Tech in Asia, this is the company’s biggest round of disclosed funding and the largest ever in Indonesia’s booming tech startup industry. The fresh cash comes in nearly 10 months since its last fund raising with an undisclosed amount. The startup also hinted the possibility of an expansion to other Southeast Asia for the first time.Investors in this new round of funding include KKR, Warburg Pincus, Farallon Capital, Capital Group Private Markets, existing shareholders and other international investors. Go-Jek also revealed for the first time that Rakuten Ventures was among their earlier investors.The move is believed to enable the Jakarta-based startup to strengthen its position in its home country in competing with industry rivals. It also took on Uber and Grab head-on with the launch of Go-Car in April.Go-Jek’s co-founder and CEO Nadiem Makarim said the startup nowhas “more than 200,000 motorcycle and car driver partners.The company started out with simply a motorcycle-hailing system in Jakarta but later expanded into on-demand services like parcel couriers, food deliveries, cleaners, and massages.According to the company website, it currently operates in ten major cities in Indonesia such as Jakarta, Bandung, Bali, Surabaya, Makassar, Yogyakarta, Medan, Semarang, Palembang and Balikpapan with development plans in other cities in the coming year.Earlier this year, Go-Jek acquired two Indian startups named C42 Engineering and CodeIgnition, as it aims to tap on India’s huge tech talent pool that include engineers, programmers and data scientists. This saw the opening of its first overseas office,  a technology center in Bangalore.