Despite the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the likes of Facebook, Google and Microsoft have cut a swath of deals to invest in the archipelago's unicorns -- private companies valued at over $1 billion. Investments in companies such as Gojek, Indonesia's largest tech company, as well as e-commerce platforms Tokopedia and Bukalapak this year are set to reach hundreds of millions of dollars.
Just as the same U.S. tech companies, sometimes grouped under the acronym GAFAM along with Amazon and Apple, are also betting big on India, the investments acknowledge that Indonesia is a market too big to ignore. The Southeast Asian country is the fourth most populous in the world, accounting for a third of the region's economic output.
The importance of the investment opportunities is even greater now that China, Asia's largest market, seems a more hostile territory for U.S. tech companies because of Beijing's spat with Washington.
Tokopedia and