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Carousell secures US $ 85m Series C shot in the arm
CLASSIFIEDS marketplace Carousell said that it has raised US $ 85 million in Series C funding, co-led by Rakuten Ventures and EDBI, with participation from existing investors, 500 Startups, Golden Gate Ventures and Sequoia India, as well as new investor, DBS, a Singapore based multinational banking and financial services corporation.
The capital injection will accelerate Carousell’ s product innovation to reimagine classifieds in an aritificial inteligence( AI)-first world, the company said. A key component will be investment into talent and deep technology capabilities to elevate the Carousell marketplace.
“ In the past six years, we’ ve gathered a lot more data, feedback and learnings about the problems and friction people face when buying and selling online. We are laser-focused on solving these problems with technology and catering to local cultural norms and behaviours in South-east Asia, while ultimately serving our core mission of inspiring everyone in the world to start selling,” said Siu Rui Quek, Carousell’ s cofounder and CEO.
“ The investment will enable us to continue building up our teams with top-tier talent to accelerate our development of highly anticipated features, and more AI and machine learning capabilities. We are grateful for the support of our new and existing investors, and their strong validation of our team’ s execution capabilities, passion for the mission and product vision,” he continued.
In the two years following its last round of funding, Carousell has quadrupled in volume globally, featuring more than 144 million listings and 50 million items sold, and expanded its marketplace offerings in Singapore. The latest round of funding will also be used to deepen the company’ s presence in key markets and pave the way for the launch of more categories across the region.“ Carousell is a homegrown company well-loved by many and has redefined buying and selling on the mobile. It continues to place strong emphasis on innovation, leveraging AI to improve user experience. We are pleased to support and help Carousell expand across the region, riding on the exciting growth of the South-east Asian consumer markets,” said Swee Yeok Chu, CEO and president, EDBI.
In conjunction with the investment,
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Carousell began to realise its AI vision last year, with the launch of predictive features such as Smart Listings, personalised browsing and chatting experiences.
DBS and Carousell will be collaborating to offer financial products and payment services on Carousell’ s platforms. DBS group CEO Piyush Gupta said:“ DBS has been leveraging digital technology and innovation to seamlessly integrate banking into the lives of customers. We’ re stepping up our participation in ecosystems, improving the customer journey and using data to inform our offerings. The investment in Carousell further builds on that. As a strategic partner to Carousell, we can leverage Carousell’ s platforms to connect to its community both inside and outside of Singapore, and strengthen our nextgeneration proposition jointly with Carousell.” ra
Zilingo raises US $ 54m in Series C funding
ONLINE fashion, beauty and lifestyle marketplace Zilingo has raised US $ 54 million in a Series C to grow further and expand internationally. This takes total funding raised by the company to US $ 82 million.
The round was led by Sofina, Burda Principal Investments and Sequoia Capital India. Amadeus Capital joins as a new investor. All existing investors participated in the round including American billionaire Tim Draper, SIG, Venturra, Beenext, Manik Arora along with others. This round comes close on the heels of Zilingo’ s US $ 17 million Series B raised five months ago.
Ankiti Bose, co-founder and CEO, said:“ We think the market is showing us the right signs in terms of adoption and retention, so it’ s good to double down. We are grateful to all the investors for continuously showing great faith in our team and our vision for fashion commerce in this region.”
Shailendra Singh, managing director, Sequoia( India) Singapore, said the Zilingo investment is special for Sequoia because its association started with a seed investment even before the Zilingo service was launched.“ Ankiti and Dhruv( Kapoor, Zilingo’ s co-founder and CTO) have totally impressed us with the quality of team they have assembled, their innovative e-commerce strategy and playbook, and their speed and quality of execution, all of which resulted in more than 10 times’ revenue growth in the past one year. This new round was finalised weeks after the last one and is a ringing endorsement of how much potential the investor group sees in the company. We’ re glad to have invested significantly across all rounds the company has raised.”
Albert Shyy, principal at Burda, added:“ Zilingo is creating a complete ecosystem for merchants to grow their online fashion business in South-east Asia and beyond. We believe there is an untapped opportunity across the entire Asian fashion value chain and continue to be very impressed with the company’ s trajectory”
Founded in October 2015, Zilingo currently sells in Indonesia, Thailand, and Singapore with more than 10,000 independent merchants using the platform to sell to millions of customers around Asia and the world. ra
Retail Asia June / July 2018 37