Zalora, a Rocket Internet fashion online retailer, announced today that it has raised EUR 20M (USD 26M) in investment from Tengelmann, a German retail company.
It also revealed that it has set up a regional software development center in Singapore, and is currently achieving double digit millions USD in annualized revenue.
Tengelmann is no stranger to Rocket Internet companies. In January this year, it invested about USD 20M in Lazada, an Amazon-like e-commerce site. Both Lazada and Zalora are active in the region, with the latter serving eight markets in Asia-Pacific and stocking over 500 brands and 20,000 product variations. Read more
Subscriptions are fast becoming a predominant way people transact online. Just look at the number of beauty box companies emerging in Asia and the amount of software-as-a-service products around. Even Microsoft, a dinosaur of the software era, has begun charging customers by the month to use its office productivity suite.
Taking advantage of the new status quo is ChargeBee, an India-based startup that aims to make implementing subscription billing easy for businesses. With ChargeBee, users can set price plans, create promotional coupons, and generate email notifications. They can then integrate ChargeBee with a selection of over 30 payment gateways. Read more
Updated on 28 February.
Welcome to the land of the living dead — at least that’s what the media and pundits will have you believe about the daily deals industry. Things took another turn for the worst when news broke that LivingSocial had to make large concessions to get USD 110M in financing.
For the rest of the daily deals industry, that’s horrible news. LivingSocial, being the second largest group buying company in the world, is the standard bearer for the others. LivingSocial’s valuation has sunk too — the company is now worth about USD 1.5B, down from USD 4.5B during the previous financing round.
Which brings us to a new development: Deal.com.sg, one of the largest daily deals sites in Singapore, has announced that it has launched a second physical collection point in the country. The news release certainly seems timely, coming shortly after word spread about LivingSocial’s debacle. Read more
HipVan: E-commerce for the hipster crowd.
Serial entrepreneur Danny Tan first caught the attention of the tech crowd on the back of Found, a mobile app that allows friends to organize gatherings. His team won the first ever Echelon startup pitch competition ever in 2010, earning praise from Dave McClure of 500 Startups and getting a USD500k investment from Neoteny Labs, East Ventures and an undisclosed angel investor.
But since then, not much has been heard about Found. Danny himself ventured into the wilderness, joining Rocket Internet as senior product manager for Southeast Asia and Singapore startup Viki as director of product. Read more
Singapore-based early stage fund TNF Ventures has invested SGD 588K (USD 475K) in MoGi, a mobile wallet app developed by Mobile Media Creations. The Singapore government’s National Research Foundation is a co-investor through the Technology Incubation Scheme.
Available on iPhone and Android for free, MoGi enables users to store virtual pre-paid cards, rewards programs, and discount coupons to over 220 dining, health, retail, and beauty outlets in Singapore. Users can even send gifts to one another. It was launched in October 2012. Read more
Singapore-based Inverted Edge, an upcoming online fashion store, has announced today that it has raised SGD 2M (USD 1.6M) from IncuVest, Accel-X, and four other undisclosed private investors.
The Singapore government’s National Research Foundation also participated in this round through Incuvest via the Technology Incubation Scheme.
Soon to be launched, Inverted Edge finds itself in an increasingly crowded space dominated by blogshops and multi-label retailers like ASOS and Zalora. Read more
Indonesia’s Scoop, a mobile newsstand app, announced today that it has signed an exclusive deal with Gramedia Book Publishing Group that will see over 10,000 local books and novels from the publisher make its way into SCOOP’s web store, which has also just launched.
The collection adds to Scoop’s existing cache of 9,000 books, magazines, and newspapers. Gramedia is a prolific book publisher in Indonesia that pumps out over 50,000 local books a year, with a tenth of them being new entries.
Users can now proceed to the web store to make purchases. Their items can then be shared with up to five devices, all of which will require the Scoop mobile app to view the book or magazine. The web store is offering discounts of up to 91 percent and will throw in a free second-year subscription for every annual subscription made to a title.
Already a leading digital publisher in Indonesia, Scoop’s new web store can eventually increase its reach in Indonesia and beyond since purchasing on the web is easier than doing so on a smartphone with its limited screen real estate.
Read more
RedMart.com, a Singapore-based online grocer, has completed its transfer to a 12,000 sq ft fulfillment center — about the size of 4 tennis courts — which can house the company’s selection of products and includes a cool room to maintain the quality of fresh goods. The company will have a product selection of 8,000 by May.
The startup also announced today that it will invest in logistics and delivery technology to increase fulfillment efficiency and accuracy as well as better coordinate its fleet of delivery vans. At this point, RedMart lets users select a two-hour delivery window, same-day delivery up to 10PM, and free delivery for orders above SGD75. Read more
Written by Oliver Segovia. Oliver (@oliversegovia) is the CEO of AVA.ph, an e-commerce platform for premium lifestyle brands in the Philippines, and the co-author of Passion & Purpose from Harvard Business Review Press.
Kim is one of the 600,000 employees in the Philippines’ fast growing business process outsourcing industry. Her shift, a daily 8-hour rush serving banking customers in the US east coast, begins every midnight and ends when most local businesses begin. On stressful days, she typically needs a jolt of online retail therapy. But since she gets home an hour before the closest mall opens, the internet has become the equivalent of her retail best friend.
Meanwhile, halfway across the bustling Metro Manila megacity of 12 million people, Jen is about to start her day running a wholesale trading business. She brings in premium brands from the US, and has a loyal following. But since the waiting time for retail space in her preferred mall is three years, she’s built her loyal following of customers entirely online.
Both stories, comprising of composite characters, are a reflection of typical use cases that are replicated increasingly everyday across the Philippines. Read more
Lazada, Rocket Internet’s Amazon clone which is active in Southeast Asia, announced yesterday that it has received an investment from German retail group Tengelmann, a regular Rocket Internet investor. According to TechCrunch, the funding amount is close to USD 20M.
The e-commerce company has been raising money at a furious clip. In September last year, it received an estimated USD 50M to USD 100M from investment bank JP Morgan. This was followed by USD 40M from Swedish investment firm Kinnevik and another USD 26M from Summit Partners. Read more
Filed under Investments, NewsTags: E-Commerce, Indonesia, lazada, Malaysia, Philippines, Rocket Internet, RocketInternet, Samwer Brothers, Thailand, Vietnam, Web
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