ShopUp, a platform to enable everyday entrepreneurs to open online stores and access financial products, has announced a $75M Series B financing led by Valar Ventures.
This financing round will help ShopUp scale its operations and expand its presence in Southeast Asia. Existing investors, including Unilever Ventures and Cherry Ventures also supported the round.
This funding round will catalyse the growth of ShopUp and enable the platform to continue providing services to the SME community.
Valar Ventures Leads $75M Series B Financing of ShopUp
ShopUp is a leading e-commerce and finance platform that enables small businesses and entrepreneurs in Southeast Asia to access credit and build success through online shops. Founded in 2016 by Husain M. Zadeh and Asif Bin Jalal, ShopUp currently operates in Bangladesh, Myanmar, Myanmar, Pakistan and Vietnam with plans to expand into other countries in Southeast Asia and beyond.
The startup has seen rapid growth since its founding, powered by its easy-to-use technology that allows customers – individual entrepreneurs and larger enterprises – to open online stores using ShopUp’s single platform. ShopUp also works with financial institutions to provide credit access to small businesses and life insurance products for shopkeepers.
With the closing of its $75 million Series B financing round led by Valar Ventures, ShopUp plans to further invest in product innovation across key markets within Southeast Asia. This includes scaling up merchant onboarding capabilities through its network of partner banks and NBFCs, opening additional tech hubs worldwide, bolstering research & development teams across all geographies (with specific focus on product localization), developing MarketPlace capabilities (eCommerce engine) for selling 3rd party goods as well as expanding local payments infrastructure for optimal customer experience; All these investments will drive growth for the company’s digital economy model of SME empowerment. With the newly closed funding round alongside earlier rounds led by top tier investors such as Sequoia India, Foundation Holdings amongst others — collectively totaling $92M invested into the company — ShopUp is strongly positioned to continue its fast expansion.
Valar Ventures Leads $75M Series B Financing of ShopUp
This month Valar Ventures announced that ShopUp, an online merchants platform, had raised $75 million in Series B financing. The round was led by Valar Ventures and was supported by other investors.
This investment will provide ShopUp with funding to continue expanding into Southeast Asia and enable them to drive growth in this region.
Let’s explore the details of this financing round.
Overview of Valar Ventures
Valar Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm based in San Francisco and Singapore, investing in the next generation of fintech and commerce companies. Founded by Andrew McCormack and Peter Thiel in 2014, Valar Ventures focuses on the most innovative startups setting new standards for customer experience and disruption. The team has a wealth of operational experience having served as founders, investors and executive managers at some of the world’s leading technology companies such as Dropbox, Airbnb, Slack and Facebook.
Valar Ventures typically invests in Seed to Series B rounds. In addition, the team works closely with founders to build global companies that are early leaders in their respective markets. The firm’s portfolio includes over fifty investments worldwide, including ShopUp—the company Valar recently led a $75M Series B financing round to fuel its expansion into digital solutions across Southeast Asia. Valar Ventures has also invested in Singaporean unicorn Grab alongside other leading venture capital firms—F&H Fund Management, SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Valar continues to pursue new investment opportunities throughout Asia Pacific for early stage companies seeking rapid growth.
Investment Highlights
Valar Ventures has led a new $75 million Series B financing round for ShopUp to support further expansion in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, the Philippines, and Malaysia. The investment was joined by returning investor Naspers and new investors ACE Capital and Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
As a result of this Series B investment, ShopUp will be able to accelerate their growth throughout the region. The company plans to expand its team, build upon its existing platform, continue offering world-class customer support and product offerings and become the leading e-commerce platform in South East Asia.
ShopUp’s mission is to create an open environment that allows local businesses without access to established infrastructure to succeed through technology adoption. This will enable local merchants to become more competitive both within their respective countries and globally by providing them with access to technologies such as payments, logistics networks and consumer finance options.
The Series B funding will also provide additional resources for developing new features available on the ShopUp platform such as ‘Marketplace model’ which allows retailers to find buyers from around the world easily and use effective digital marketing solutions so potential customers can discover their products quickly.
This latest infusion of capital cements Valar’s commitment to investing in emerging markets with prominent consumer champions such as ShopUp at the helm of these companies leading digital transformation across industries in Southeast Asia.
ShopUp’s Expansion in Southeast Asia
ShopUp, a Bangladeshi e-commerce platform, recently announced a $75M Series B financing led by Valar Ventures. This financing will support further expansion in Southeast Asia, helping ShopUp become a leader in e-commerce for Bangladesh and the region.
In this article, we’ll look at how ShopUp plans to use the new funding, and what this means for the company’s expansion in Southeast Asia.
Overview of Southeast Asian markets
The Southeast Asian region is home to some of the world’s most dynamic markets, representing around 600 million people with a combined GDP over 2.6 trillion dollars. Among the countries in the region, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam are frequently viewed as the most promising e-commerce markets due to their fast-growing economies and rapidly expanding internet populations.
In recent years, these countries have seen a growing middle class in urban areas and an increased number of tech-savvy users that utilise digital mediums for convenience and cost savings. As a result, more businesses across various industries have been adopting digital solutions to increase efficiency, earn customer loyalty and drive economic growth.
ShopUp operates at the centre of this trend, by offering its SMEs customers an omnichannel platform for merchants to engage with consumers through their preferred channels – such as messaging apps or social platforms like Facebook or Instagram – creating e-commerce opportunities for independent retailers throughout Southeast Asia’s highly disconnected landscape of fragmented online marketplaces. With Valar Ventures’ new $75M Series B financing of ShopUp’s operations in Southeast Asia, ShopUp will continue to scale its offline-to-online solutions for SMEs across all major markets in Southeast Asia – helping them drive revenue growth through digital campaigns and store traffic optimization.
ShopUp’s Expansion Plans
Valar Ventures recently announced its leading role in a $75M Series B financing round for ShopUp, an innovative Southeast Asian e-commerce and payments startup. With the new capital, ShopUp plans to further expand its regional operations.
Founded by Bangladesh-based entrepreneurs Asif Hossain and Shamim Islamic, ShopUp has quickly become one of Southeast Asia’s fastest-growing consumer internet companies.
ShopUp will use the additional funding to expand into markets with current operations such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. The startup also plans to build up their presence in other countries such as Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. These markets are expected to contain large e-commerce potential for small businesses who lack presence or access on larger platforms.
The company’s app allows buyers to engage with unique products from small vendors who typically don’t have access to other platforms due to geographical challenges or digital infrastructure issues. Additionally, the app allows customers and merchants to manage finances digitally for a seamless digital shopping experience that eliminates much of the complexity of cash payments during purchases or digital transfers after sales are completed.
Modestly priced products make fair margins on ShopUp’s app primarily because it requires 0 fee per transaction, making it inexpensive for merchants while ensuring a smooth purchase experience. Furthermore, ShopUp has also developed partnerships with banks such as Standard Chartered Bank’s SCB Easy Pay initiative where shoppers can now use their debit cards with e-wallet instalments allowing them greater flexibility when it comes time to make their purchase decisions over traditional transfer payments via cash lenders or ATM withdrawals which occur off apps like those that offer UPI transactions.
With this new financing round, ShopUp will be able to move forward with their mission of connecting small businesses across Southeast Asia with millions of consumers through its platform built on trust and convenience!
Benefits of the Financing
ShopUp’s Series B Financing, led by Valar Ventures, is an important milestone as it looks to expand its presence in Southeast Asia. The $75M Series B Financing will enable ShopUp to further develop their platform, acquire new customers, and scale their operations.
In this article, we will look closer into how this financing will benefit ShopUp and its users.
ShopUp’s Growth Opportunities
The $75 million financing round led by Valar Ventures will provide ShopUp with considerable opportunities to secure additional growth in Southeast Asia. ShopUp is an innovative, “omni-channel” platform that provides small and medium-sized merchants with services from digital payments, supply chain management and inventory control to customer service and logistics capabilities. The platform has grown exponentially since its founding in 2018, and the additional funding will enable the firm to expand even further across Southeast Asia.
The financing will provide the flexibility to strengthen partnerships with existing telco providers; deploy innovative technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML); create new strategic partnerships; accelerate research & development initiatives; deepen investments in talent; build a dedicated regional data centre or cloud infrastructure for scaling business operations across multiple geographies; bolster security through information security policies as well as physical security systems such as advanced encryption techniques and multifactor authentication protocols; and expand its ongoing mobile marketing campaigns.
The current Series B funding round is another important step forward for ShopUp in its mission to empower small retailers by providing them with a comprehensive suite of tools they need to compete with larger market players. As a result, the company is well positioned to have an even greater impact on livelihoods in Southeast Asia’s rapidly growing eCommerce market, now estimated at over 70 billion dollars annually.
Benefits to Valar Ventures
Valar Ventures stands to benefit greatly from investing in ShopUp’s Series B financing. This venture capital firm focuses on markets with high potential and growth, where ShopUp has excelled as a company in the Southeast Asian region. As an emerging markets specialist, Valar Ventures has targeted ShopUp due to their impressive growth trajectory since their Series A in 2019.
The Series B is set to give not only Valar Ventures, but investors the chance to get early stage capital alongside those that bring more experience and resources into ShopUp which offers a unique opportunity for investors interested in expanding into Southeast Asia and beyond. With this financing surge, the venture capital firm will be able to be involved at an early stage, gain strategic visibility from the deal, tap into new deals/deal flow as well as reaping the rewards and benefits ofShopUp’s growth momentum via revenue split/equity distributions among other incentives.
Investing in ShopUp’s series B financing would allow Valar Ventures an excellent opportunity for their portfolio of companies to build upon each other due to the increased capital flows which could result from this additional investment package from Valar Ventures directed towards Shopup; thus increasing rapid expansion areas within the region while providing further local access across a range of supply chains through ecommerce channels –such as digital payments and enterprise resource planning (ERP) software solutions — amongst a host of other bouquet services offered by Shopup. In addition, it opens up longer-term opportunities for investments made towards exiting such expanded profit groups once their market gains ground saturation throughout Southeast Asia.