By: Mohammad Irfandi )*
Either good news or bad news, some investors interested to develop one of the Ojek Online Coorperation in Indonesia that was Grap. Grap Coorperation got aquity funding about $750 million or 9.8 trillion Rupiah, so the total funding that Grap Coorperation have is 13 trillion Rupiah. Is this the momentum of Ojek Online Indonesia to develop highly as a signal to start using Ojek Online?
According to the grapevine the news, one of the new investors Grab is a shareholder in ride-sharing service based China, Didi Kuaidi. However, there has been no official confirmation from the Grab about the issue. The F series of funding led by SoftBank Capital is well known in the royal poured funds. Ranks of the old investors to re-invest, along with some new names that have not been revealed.
Grab founder and CEO, Anthony Tan said the latest funding makes Grab a technology company that raked Southeast Asia’s largest investment in history. Grab will be projecting their investment funds into three sectors of development. First, Grab want more aggressively to develop its services in Indonesia.
The population of the country, which reached 250 million is regarded as a great potential, especially in big cities like Jakarta, where 30 million people need practical transportation for mobility solid.
Grab boasted its services in Indonesia grew 250 times in one year, recorded at the end of 2015. Looking ahead, Grab would bring new features more tailored to the needs of local communities.
Second, Grab want to develop non-cash payment mechanisms GrabPay. This aims to provide mobile payment solutions that are practical for users.
Currently Grab has teamed up with Bank Mandiri in Indonesia to operate the feature. Working with the Lippo Group also carried out to implement GrabPay in department stores, Hypermart, coffee shops, cinemas, and e-commerce platform belonging to Lippo Group.
Third, develop mechanisms of more efficient technologies, machine learning, and data science. Grab said will continue to employ the best talents to fill the post of research and development centers alias research and development (R & D) in Singapore, Beijing, and Seattle.
This is to provide better service for users with an efficient way. For example in predicting demand in congested areas at certain times, streamline service driver, and is targeting new users.
Since receiving the funding the E series in August 2015 and then, Grab have doubled the number of users, partners driver and delivery volume. Currently, the Grab application has been downloaded 21 million times and more than 400,000 drivers available to serve the people of Southeast Asia.
Otherwise, either good news or bad news, this article will allow you to the right side to support the development of Ojek Online Indonesia. One critical point why Ojek Online Indonesia can develop easily in Indonesia is the cost tranparency between driver and costumer by using an application. It makes costumer feeling confortable to use Ojek Online in Indonesia.
)* The author is Indonesia political economy observer