INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Carousell, the Singapore-based mobile listing service that operates across Southeast Asia, has pulled in an $85 million Series C fund as it
seeks to strengthen its business among the region competitive e-commerce landscape before expanding globally.
The round was co-led by
existinginvestor Rakuten Ventures and EDBI,the corporate investment arm of Singapore Economic Development Board
Other participants included returning investors500 Startups, Golden Gate Ventures and Sequoia India as well as new investor DBS, Southeast
Asia largest bank with over $330 billion in assets.
TechCrunch previously reported that Carousell had agreed on the roundlast October, when
We understand that it remained opened for strategic investors, before finally closing earlier this year
When asked in October if it had invested in Carousell, DBS said it hadn&t so it potentially came on board recently; Tech In Asia previously
reported that EDBI became a Carousell investor in 2017.
This new round means that six-year-old Carousell has now raised over $110 million,
It closed a $35 million Series B in October 2016.
&It been six years since I made my partners very angry when I decided to do a startup, so
it great to again get the validation of our investors,& co-founder and CEOSiu Rui Quek joked in an interview with TechCrunch
&Six years ago it was mobile, now we&re going into an AI-first world [with other challenges such as] how do we make payments a lot more
frictionless.&
Carousell core business is a consumer-to-consumer sales which, like a listings site, lets people sell unwanted items to each
To date, the platform has helped sell over 50 million items and today it has 144 million listings.In recent years, it has fanned out to
offer more verticals that includecars, property, jobs, services and finance.
The primary C2C portion of the business remains free, but the
company has begun to monetize over the past several quarters, Quek explained.
Its revenue streams include advertising and partnerships —
such as financial services and travel insurance — promoted listing and ‘spotlight& ads for sellers, cost per click ads, and certain
premium verticals, including automotive, real estate and more.
Carousellco-founder and CEOSiu Rui Quek
Living with e-commerce giants
While
its offering is different since it centers around person-to-person sales, Carousell more generally competes with e-commerce
unicornsAlibaba-owned Lazada, Sea Shopee, and Alibaba Aliexpress, as well as Tokopedia (yup, also funded by Alibaba) in Indonesia.
Quek
said, however, played up the role of these straight-up e-commerce firms.
&They serve an important part of the system, they&re very
complementary,& he explained
&For example, when Lazada runs a big sale, we&re quite happy because people will have unwanted items or things to sell later.&
&Lots of
e-commerce guys have come [to Southeast Asia] but we continue to grow,& he added.
Figuring out just how large Carousell is in Southeast Asia
The company doesn&t talk about GMV
Quek said the number isn&t relevant — it doesn&t take payment for consumer-to-consumer sales, and advertising/services are major income
streams — although sources last year suggested Carousell GMV could be around $5 billion.
Considering Carousell business is different to
the others, that number is impressive.Shopee claimed $1.6 billion GMV during its most recent quarter — which would be $6.4 billion
annually — while Lazada no longer reveals its figures but claims to be larger.
Back to topics that Carousell does talk about, and global
expansion remains something of interest to the team — which hails from Singapore NUS; making them arguably Singapore first home-grown
startup.
&We do have global ambitions as a company, but the focus is really still cementing our leadership in Southeast Asia
It such an exciting region, it still nascent andthere still a lotto work for us to do in the grand scheme of things,& said Quek.
That
discussion about moving outside of the region is likely to happen in &the next year or so,& he added.
Hiring is the single biggest
challenge
For now though, Carousell is focused on growing its position in Southeast Asia, and in particular expanding its premium offerings
— automotive, real estate and partnerships — beyond Singapore and into markets like Indonesia, the world fourth most populous country,
The startup is also keen to grow its engineering chops, especially around AI which helps it match buyers and sellers.
&Hiring isextremely
difficult,& Quek explained
&The single biggest focus for me and my team is going back into the weeds to find great talent
We already have over100 product engineers covering 19 nationalities, we&ve got to bring people in from across the world.&
Beyond an HQ in
Singapore, Carousell has been pragmatic in opening up offices where it can find talent
There a team of 20 in Taiwan and a small office of 10 engineers in Vietnam, too, while it has made threeacquihires to bring in talent and
Those have been case-by-case, Quek said, so we shouldn&t expect the company to necessary go out and make more acquisitions following this
new round of investment.
&Acquisitions arenot a specific stream we&re deliberate about at this point & -but we&re definitely keen to see if
opportunistic acquisitions might come about,& he said.
Finally, with Carousell now one of Singapore best-funded local startups — with
influential bank DBS on its side, too — there likely to be talk about potential exits
Sea, formerly Garena, held a rare Southeast Asia IPO in the US last year, and Hong Kong is heating up as a tech listing destination with the
likes of Xiaomiand Singapore Razer filing there.
For now, though, Quek said that isn&t a thought he or his team are giving time to.
&There
are no plans for an IPO, we&re still super excited about the long-term opportunities and building on the mission,& he said
&We always say we areless than one percent done.&
