Indonesian Billionaire Chairul Tanjung’s Trans Retail Teams Up With Bukalapak For Online Grocery Platform

Trans Retail Indonesia, controlled by billionaire Chairul Tanjung, is teaming up with e-commerce unicorn Bukalapak and Singapore-based venture capital firm Growtheum Capital Partners to launch an online grocery platform, Allofresh.  

Details about ownership of Allofresh were not disclosed. The partners in the joint venture said Allofresh will have initial funding of 1 trillion rupiah ($69.7 million). The platform will offer more than 150,000 items from around 10,000 suppliers with delivery options across Indonesia.  

 Tanjung, chairman of CT Corp., said in a statement the joint venture will cater to the change in consumption patterns and the need to provide an “omnichannel” offline-and-online experience.   

“By partnering with a technology player with a deep understanding of online user behavior and a financial investor that knows the market intimately, we are optimistic about the future together, especially as bigger chunks of the market move online over the coming decade,” Tanjung said. 

 Trans Retail Indonesia, part of CT Corp., is Indonesia’s largest retailer, operating 128 hypermarkets and supermarkets under the TRANSmart and Multimart brands. Tanjung was ranked No. 6 on the list of Indonesia’s 50 Richest for 2021, with a net worth of $5.5 billion. 

Bukalapak was the first unicorn in Indonesia to go public, raising $1.5 billion in August 2021. The all-commerce platform currently serves more than 10.4 million offline MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) and 6.7 million online merchants, and has more than 100 million users in Indonesia. 

“The collaboration will further enhance Bukalapak’s leadership in online to offline (O2O) offering and expand the touchpoints into a broader range of customers,” Willix Halim, CEO of Bukalapak said.  

Olivier Legrand, transaction advisory member of Growtheum Capital Partners, said that while there’s been a significant increase in e-commerce activity in Indonesia in recent years, little of that has been in the online grocery market. He said such activity makes up less than 2% of Indonesia’s total grocery retail spend, compared to 14% in South Korea, 11% in China, and 10% in Japan. In Southeast Asia, grocery accounts for 50% of all retail spending, Legrand said.