Go-Jek acquires AirCTO

Indonesia based ride-hailing startup Go-Jek announced its acquisition of Bengaluru based AirCTO, an artificial intelligence based recruitment platform for an undisclosed amount.

Go-Jek will use the acquisition to open its second engineering and product development centre in Gurgaon. As part of the deal, the AirCTO team will join Go-Jek with immediate effect and will look at building products that accelerate recruitments for Go-Jek. The company has also announced the opening of a new office in Gurgaon, for which Go-Jek plans to hire 100 employees aiming to reach a headcount of 500 in India by the year-end.

Other expansion plans include more acquisitions in India, with Go-Jek actively exploring the start-up space, particularly entities with expertise in engineering, design and product management. Go-Jek currently runs one of the largest JRuby, Clojure, Java and Go clusters in Asia. Its robust tech-infrastructure is built and managed by over 350 engineers, who manage operations across Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

The Indonesian company offers on-demand ordering of food, last-mile commuting, digital payments, shopping, hyper-local delivery, grocery delivery, and two dozen services on its super app. The app was first launched in January 2015 for consumers in Indonesia. Go-Jek now operates in 204 cities and regions in five Southeast Asian countries.

Lyft acquires FinitePaths

US based ride hailing services Lyft has acquire Pune based startup FinitePaths for an undisclosed sum as it follow its larger rival Uber in tapping India’s large talent base to solve its global technology problems.

Uber opened its technology development centre in Bengaluru in February 2016, with the mandate to build solutions for the local market which could then be exported to other markets. The company ‘pay-by-cash’ model which was built out of India is now available in several Southeast Asian Markets. Apart from Uber, it’s Southeast Asian rival Grab recently announced its plans to setup a research centre in Bengaluru where it would employ 200 engineers that would largely work on payment technologies.

Similarly Indonesian bike taxi service Go-Jek has acquired three Indian startups – Pianta, C42 Technologies and Codelgnition to shore up talent for its development centre here. The top management of Go-Jek India centre comes from local service Ola which pioneered the ride-hailing market in the country.

Go-Jek acquires LeftShift Technologies

Indonesian Bike hailing app Go-Jek has acquired Pune based app development company LeftShift Technologies Pvt. Ltd for an undisclosed amount to strengthen its product development efforts, making its fourth acquisition of an Indian firm.

It helped more than 200 companies design and develops mobile apps, including companies such as BookMyShow, Practo, OYO, Byju’s Classes, Airtel and Emerson. It also counted Go-Jek as one of its customers. The product development centre, which has about 60 employees now, comprises developers, data scientists, designers and product managers who work on mining data and delivering better experiences for consumers.

Go-Jek had earlier acquired Bengaluru-based home healthcare start-up Pianta in August. In February, the firm announced that it bought Bengaluru-based software engineering company C42 Engineering India Pvt. Ltd and Delhi-based development and operations company CodeIgnition Software Solutions Pvt. Ltd for engineering talent. These deals are so-called acqui-hires, which is jargon for an acquisition made to gain access to the employees of the acquired company.

Go-Jek offers stock options to the employees of its acquired companies that vest over four years. Go-Jek was started by Harvard graduate in 2011 and is the first Indonesian start-up to achieve the “unicorn” status after a $550 million funding round in August led by KKR and Warburg Pincus.

Go-Jek acquires Pianta

Go-Jek, the Indonesian ride-hailing service backed by Sequoia Capital, KKR & Co and Warburg Pincus, has acquired Bangalore based health care marketplace Pianta, its third acquisition in India. The purchase is aimed at beefing up its engineering team in India, which is focused on product innovation and mining data to better serve Go-Jek customers in Indonesia.

Go-Jek, which introduced a mobile app in January 2015 to provide motorcycle rides on demand, raised more than $550 Million in a round of funding in August to compete with Uber Technologies Inc. and Grab, two private car hailing startups that have begun two wheeled services on its home turf.

Go-Jek has become one of the most popular ways to get around in Indonesia, especially in traffic snarled cities like Jakarta. The company has branched out to other services, including food delivery, same-day delivery, grocery shopping and household cleaning. In April, it introduced an e-wallet service called Go-Pay to enable payments across its diverse services.

Pianta, which helps customers find and make appointments with healthcare providers, was founded in 2015. Go-Jek has acquired two other Indian startups in the past to bolster its engineering ranks. Grab, Go-Jek rival in Indonesia, raised $750 Million this month from Investors including Softbank Group Corp.