Indonesian Tech Firm GoTo Reassures Investors of Growth as Net Losses Triple in ’22 Q1

Ride-hailing and eCommerce firm GoTo Group, in its first quarter as a public company, has posted 53% gross revenue growth, which sees it accelerating from 2021 and showing how Indonesian tech is evolving, Bloomberg writes.

This all comes as GoTo is trying to show investors that it has growth prospects, even with the Russian war in Ukraine compounding other challenges like inflation, rising interest rates and other such issues.

The company reportedly raised $1.1 billion in an initial public offering that the report says was one of the biggest in the world for 2022.

The funds helped it to fight rivals like Grab while online services are getting more popular in the Southeast Asia region.

GoTo has been the largest company riding the rise of mobile penetration and internet use in that region, which has over 650 million people.

But it is in a precarious position as a company; it’s adding users at a rapid clip, but that hasn’t generated much profit yet.

The company has a leadership position in Indonesia, with shoppers ordering rides and food through Gojek and shopping on Tokopedia, and this has helped shares do better than Grab’s, which is now a public company through a merger with a U.S. special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) last year.

PYMNTS wrote in April that GoTo was staring down an uncertain future before the IPO, even in spite of predictions for healthy returns on investment after going public.

Read on: GoTo’s Post-IPO Ascent Is Far From a Done Deal

The IPO was intended to increase the value of stakes held by Alibaba and SoftBank up to $5 billion or so, but there were fears that the enthusiasm for the company could diminish, as many FinTechs’ values have before.

The PYMNTS IPO FinTech tracker was down 20% at the end of the first quarter, with the more than 40 names showing an average of 20% down from the IPO price.