Bukalapak's warung-marketplace bet ends in a gaming pivot — $1.5B IPO to exit

Bukalapak is an Indonesian e-commerce and financial-services group that began as a marketplace for micro, small and medium enterprises; after ending physical-goods sales in 2025 it focuses on gaming and virtual products through Multi Realm Games, the Mitra merchant network and digital investment services.

That Indonesia's micro merchants — the warung economy — would sell online through Bukalapak, letting a homegrown marketplace outlast rivals by owning the long tail.

$1.5B raised in Indonesia's biggest IPO (August 2021); earlier backers included Ant Group, GIC and Microsoft.

Bukalapak was founded in 2010 in Bandung by Achmad Zaky and co-founders from the Bandung Institute of Technology as a simple way for small businesses to sell online. It grew into one of Indonesia's largest marketplaces focused on micro, small and medium enterprises outside the top cities, and by August 2021 — eleven years after founding — it listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange as the country's first tech unicorn, raising $1.5B with backers including Ant Group and GIC.

The listing valued the warung-marketplace story highly, but competition hardened: Shopee, TikTok-controlled Tokopedia and China's cross-border sellers won Indonesian consumers, and Bukalapak reported a Rp593.23B loss in the first nine months of 2024. In January 2025 the company said it would stop selling physical goods, with final orders by February 9, and transform itself around virtual products such as mobile credits, streaming vouchers and gaming. The pivot quickly reshaped the business: by H1 2026 revenue was Rp3.99T, up 29%, and gaming — run through Multi Realm Games with brands Lapakgaming, Joytify and Itemku across more than 15 countries — generated Rp3.5T, about 85% of the total, while adjusted EBITDA turned positive.

The warung long tail was real but defensible only at the edges: once Shopee and TikTok chased it with subsidies and logistics, Bukalapak's marketplace economics broke.

Going public in 2021 gave it a balance sheet and retail investor base that let it survive a strategic restart instead of shutting down.

Gaming and virtual products fit what Bukalapak already had — digital distribution, merchant reach and payment rails — with higher margins than physical e-commerce.

Multi Realm Games' international expansion (15+ countries, 70+ payment methods) made the pivot less dependent on Indonesia's saturated home market.

An early winner can still lose the category: Bukalapak owned the warung narrative but not the consumer endgame, and survival meant abandoning its founding marketplace for gaming.

As of 2026-07-28 Bukalapak is a listed company mid-transformation: physical-goods e-commerce ended in early 2025, and H1 2026 revenue rose 29% to Rp3.99T with positive adjusted EBITDA, led by gaming (Rp3.5T, about 85% of revenue) through Multi Realm Games' Lapakgaming, Joytify and Itemku brands across more than 15 countries. Mitra and BMoney remain part of the group, and the company reported a first-half net loss driven mainly by a Rp1.75T mark-to-market loss on its Allo Bank investment.