Singapore's Carousell gets $35m Series B round

Other participants in the round included Sequoia Capital India, 500 Startups and Golden Gate Ventures, all of which featured in the company's $6 million Series A round alongside Rakuten in 2014. Other previous backers include Darius Cheung, CEO of property listings platform 99.co and founder of mobile security company TenCube.

"A big part of this round will be just accelerating our international expansion," Carousell co-founder and CEO Siu Rui Quek told Tech in Asia. "We're still in the process of selecting the next few markets - but it's certainly going to be beyond Southeast Asia."

Founded in 2012, Carousell has so far aimed to tap mobile-first internet penetration as well as established online shopping markets with services currently offered across Singapore, Malaysia, the US, Indonesia, Taiwan, Australia and Hong Kong. The company's app is positioned as a convenient mobile alternative to online forums and classified listing sites for buying and selling items such as second-hand books and clothing. It now counts some 35 million listings posted by users.

Rakuten is currently investing from its $100 million global VC fund, which was launched in 2014 and targets IT start-ups and early-stage companies across Asia Pacific, Israel and the US. The firm's previous activity in Singapore e-commerce includes participation in a Series A round for PocketMath, a mobile advertising platform for placing ads through a real-time bidding system. It also launched a $100 million financial technology fund last year targeting early to mid-stage start-ups.

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Consumer
• Technology
• Early-stage
• Singapore
• TMT
• Venture
• Rakuten
• Sequoia Capital
• Golden Gate Ventures
• 500 Startups