L

ocal e-commerce company Bukalapak aims to record a transaction value of Rp 2 trillion (US$158.5 million) this year, backed by billions of rupiah from publicly listed media conglomerate PT Elang Mahkota Teknologi '€” known as the EMTEK Group.

EMTEK, on behalf of its online business subsidiary PT Kreatif Media Karya (KMK), signed a deal with Bukalapak on Wednesday, in which KMK would give hundreds of billions of rupiah in Series B funding to Bukalapak in return for a minority stake in the e-commerce company.

Series B is a term commonly used to name investment in a startup company that has already achieved certain milestones and has a higher valuation than when it was established.

'€œWe can'€™t yet disclose how much we will invest in the company, but it will be [in the region of] hundreds of billions of rupiah,'€ said EMTEK CEO Sutanto Hartono.

With its media power, KMK would help Bukalapak raise public awareness of online shopping, he told reporters on Wednesday after the signing ceremony.

KMK manages a number of online sites, including online news portal liputan6.com, video site vidio.com and a number of classified advertisements.

Bukalapak CEO Achmad Zaky said he was upbeat that his company would record a total of Rp 2 trillion in transactions this year.

'€œWe will use the investment fund to expand our merchant base as well as marketing activities,'€ he said.

Bukalapak, which was established in 2010, currently has 150,000 merchants with 10 million visitors per month.

Achmad said by injecting hundreds of billions of rupiah into Bukalapak, KMK would acquire a minority stake in Bukalapak.

He refused to disclose the amount of the investment fund or the acquired stake, but he confirmed that it would be no more than 40 percent.

Bukalapak has previously secured Series B investment from the Japanese Internet media company GREE Inc., which has become the largest investor for the company'€™s Series B funding.

Research firm Frost & Sullivan associate director for ICT consulting in the Asia Pacific, Spike Choo, said recent investment in Indonesia'€™s startups would continue this year '€”following the global trend, given the growing e-commerce market in the country.

'€œE-commerce and mobile commerce usage will gain traction supported by infrastructure build out and well-funded startups,'€ he said.

Last year alone, local e-commerce company Tokopedia secured $100 million in investment from Japan'€™s SoftBank Corp. and US-based Sequoia Capital.

Choo said the growth in Indonesia'€™s e-commerce would also be supported by various payment methods that did not require the use of credit cards.

'€œIt the next two years, there will be a lot more Bitcoin payments replacing credit cards ['€¦]. It will allow people to buy online more,'€ he said.

Indonesia'€™s credit card penetration stood at 3.2 percent of its 250 million-population as of September last year, with 8 million credit-card users and 15.8 million credit cards.