Alternative investments are essential

Celia Yan, Head of APAC Private Credit, BlackRock

Joydeep Chakraborty, Chief Strategy and Investment Officer, Traveloka

Celia: Traveloka’s proven track record, combined with the opportunities brought by travel and tourism have made this an interesting investment for our clients. Leveraging BlackRock’s industry expertise, we are helping to create value as Traveloka pursues its next phase of growth.

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Celia: Hi, JD. It's great to have you here. Could you tell us a little bit more about Traveloka and the firm's vision and how the company was founded?

Joydeep: The company was founded back in 2012. Today, after 12 years, (Traveloka) is a leading online travel business across Southeast Asia. Be it flights, car rentals, hotels, attractions and activities, as well as a lot of enablement products like financial services, including pay later.

Celia: How did you manage to navigate the pandemic period? And how did we support you?

Joydeep: Covid came unannounced. We didn’t really have a lot of time to react. We had to get all hands on deck. We started reviewing every product, every business, every market. All the users we had acquired over the years, how do you keep them when they’re not transacting on travel? So, our founder rallied the company to create engagement products like games, live streaming, even food delivery. And we came out of it with a relatively decent mindshare of our users. That’s when we started looking for growth capital again. And that’s when we realized that, at least in APAC and our part of the world, there were very limited depth in the funding market when it came to growth stage companies like us. And that’s where you and your team came across as exactly the right kind of partners we were looking for. I think that whole experience of how you brought a group of other like-minded investors together with you, who all have now become important partners for us. The collateral benefit of that continues to help us. For example, when we talk to banks or when we talk to the more traditional capital providers, their perception of us has changed quite a bit because of the halo effect we got from our relation with you. BlackRock was at the forefront of creating the formal private credit market in this part of the world. Do you feel there’s enough depth or opportunities also in APAC overall?

Celia: APAC is such a diverse region right. We have developed economies like in Australia and New Zealand. But as we continue to grow and evolve, the key growth engine across the region is really the emerging countries. When there’s growth, there’s need of capital for expansion, but the capital market is not consistent. We always want to be there to identify the companies where founders, management teams are like-minded. We can be there for the companies to support the growth at good times and at bad times. We want to focus on performing (credit). We want to focus on support of the growth. That’s why, you know, we’ve been proactive in looking for opportunities across the region and looking for companies like Traveloka to support along the way.

Joydeep: So is this a constant education process or is it deal by deal?

Celia: We view every transaction as a starting point to build a long-term partnership. We’re not very transaction focused. But really how to build a long-term relationship that we can be there to support the long-term growth of each of our potential portfolio companies that we call partners.