Bukalapak
- 🦄Became a unicorn2017
- 📈Peak valuation$7.6 Billion ’21
- 💔Became a Unitard2022
- 💸Last valuation~$912M
How it happened
Bukalapak was one of Indonesia's earliest e-commerce unicorns, a marketplace serving small 'warung' shops, and its August 2021 IPO was the country's biggest ever — raising $1.5B at a ~$7.6B listing value. It never found profitability against Shopee and Tokopedia; the stock fell about 85%, and in March 2025 it shut its core physical-goods marketplace to focus on virtual products and bill payments, its market value settling near $0.9B. Reviews from employees during the drift described strategy whiplash — business lines spun up and shut down within a year, reorgs nearly every quarter — and quiet cuts via gardening leave, even as staff kept praising the work-life balance and generous health insurance.
Employee accounts paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗. See our methodology.
Source: Bloomberg / Jakarta Globe / companiesmarketcap (Indonesia's largest IPO Aug 2021, raised $1.5B, listed at ~$7.6B; -85% from IPO price; shut e-commerce marketplace March 2025; ~$0.9B market cap by 2026)
