admin South-east Asia’s largest online travel startup Traveloka, is looking to financial services to boost profits and could opt for a dual listing in Indonesia and another centre if the group launches an initial public offering (IPO.
Traveloka a 7 year old startup ties up other dominant local unicorns like e-commerce firm Tokopedia and ride-hailing firm Gojek in considering dual listings to stay closer to their home market, while also tapping a diverse investor pool.
Traveloka Group president Henry Hendrawan said “Listing in the US will have its benefits but we want to have the option to have some sort of local listing so perhaps dual listing will be a good structure.”
Traveloka claims to have 35 million active users in seven countries and has raised over US$900 million and it is backed by US travel giant Expedia, Singapore state wealth fund GIC, and Chinese online retailer JD.com.
Its IPO plans appear to have been pushed back due to a slowing global economy and poor performance of newly listed firms such as Uber Technologies and a steep markdown in valuations of US office-space sharing firm WeWork.
It has chosen instead to focus on fundraising and was in talks with investors to raise US$500 million earlier this year, one source said.
Those talks put Traveloka’s valuation at US$4.5 billion in July.
Traveloka has moved into financial services but earlier has focused on ticketing and hotel booking. In South-east Asia’s largest economy it has launched a credit card with Bank Rakyat Indonesia .
Mr Hendrawan said “Traveloka was targeting ‘under-banked’ Indonesian customers with its PayLater product, which provides consumer loans to customers so they can pay for services.”
By 2025 in South-east Asia, Digital financial services are estimated to generate annual revenue of about US$38 billion up sharply from US$11 billion this year according to reports.
Traveloka is also focusing increasingly on travel and lifestyle “experiences” to grow its margins, taking on US rental company Airbnb and SoftBank-backed Hong Kong startup Klook.
On a bid to become closer to a travel and lifestyle platform in July 2019, Traveloka launched its Xperience brand proposing 15,000 activities and services.
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