Bukalapak


Bukalapak is a unicorn and one of the largest e-commerce company in Indonesia. Founded by Achmad Zaky, Nugroho Herucahyono and Fajrin Rasyid in 2010, Bukalapak initially started as an online marketplace to enable small medium enterprise go online. The company expands into many areas beyond its origins, including online-to-offline solution by empowering traditional mom-and-pop stores called warung as its partners. As of 2019, the company has more than 4.5 million SME sellers, 70 million monthly active users, 1.9 million warung partners, and averaging two million transactions per day.

History

Bukalapak was founded in 2010 by Achmad Zaky with two of his college friends from Bandung Institute of Technology, Fajrin Rasyid and Nugroho Herucahyono.
Bukalapak allows users to digitally sell their goods without a large amount of capital and make transactions. Bukalapak’s first major success was when folding bicycles started trending in 2010. At that time there were many communities selling various types of bikes and biking accessories, which played a significant role in increasing Bukalapak’s users.
Bukalapak wants to embrace SMEs all over Indonesia and then International to utilize advanced technology to broaden their market reach. The nickname "Pelapak" is a common term used to call the sellers in Bukalapak. Bukalapak is also well-known for its efforts to embrace its pelapak communities all over the Indonesia and then International, which uphold the values of cooperation, togetherness, honesty, and thirst for knowledge.
In September 2019, Bukalapak confirmed that it has laid off hundreds of employees. The layoffs were the result of an adjustment in strategy and efficiency improvements. The company is discontinuing its smart retail and internet-of-things divisions leading to job cuts among engineers. The startup also shed some marketing roles because of overexpansion, but core functions like digital marketing remain unaffected.

Finances

Less than a year after being founded, Bukalapak received an additional capital from Batavia Incubator. In 2012, Bukalapak received another additional investment from GREE Ventures led by Kuan Hsu.
In March 2014, Bukalapak announced that it received an investment by Aucfan, IREP, 500 Startups, and GREE Ventures.
From Emtek's 2015 financial statements, it is known that Bukalapak has obtained investment fund from Emtek totaling up to Rp 439 billion. However, in 2015, Bukalapak is still losing Rp 229 billion, with revenues of Rp 6.4 billion.
In January 2019, Bukalapak announced an undisclosed funding round by Mirae Asset-Naver Asia Growth Fund, a joint venture between Seoul-based Mirae Financial Group and Naver, the company behind LINE messaging service.

Founders