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Indonesia
This Week in AsiaEconomics

Jeff Bezos isn’t the only billionaire eyeing Indonesia’s US$44 billion digital economy

  • The Amazon founder is funding Indonesian start-up Ula, a business-to-business logistics marketplace for small retailers
  • His investment comes amid a flurry of interest in the country, which has also drawn in Japan’s Masayoshi Son and Hong Kong business magnate Li Ka-shing’s Horizons Ventures

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Billionaire US businessman Jeff Bezos. Photo: AFP
Resty Woro Yuniarin Jakarta
American billionaire Jeff Bezos – recently toppled as the world’s richest man by rival tech tycoon Elon Musk – is betting on the future of Southeast Asian e-commerce with his investment in 18-month-old Indonesian start-up Ula.
Through his family office, Bezos Expeditions, the world’s second richest man took part in a US$87 million Series B funding round led by Prosus Ventures, Tencent and B-Capital for the Jakarta-based e-commerce company, just eight months after it had raised US$20 million in a Series A round.
The size of Bezos’ investment in Ula was not disclosed, but he is not the only billionaire eyeing a slice of Indonesia’s US$44 billion digital economy.

Hong Kong business magnate Li Ka-shing’s private investment firm, Horizons Ventures, said in May that it would pivot its focus from North America, Europe and Israel to Southeast Asia – and Indonesia in particular – after witnessing the rapid pace of digitalisation in the region amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Last year, an estimated 40 million people in Southeast Asia went online for the first time, bringing the total number of internet users in the region to some 400 million – out of a population of more than 600 million – according to a joint study by Google, Temasek and Bain & Co.

Musk, the CEO and co-founder of carmaker Tesla among other ventures, has also been linked to new investments in the region, with an Indonesian official claiming in February that Tesla had submitted a proposal to build a new facility in the country.
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Last year, Indonesian President Joko Widodo personally called Musk to discuss the electric vehicle industry and offer a spot in Indonesia’s remote Papua region as a potential launch site for the tech tycoon’s aerospace company SpaceX.
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