Sequoia, Venturra, SIG lead $8m Series A for Thailand's Zilingo

The company, which partners with small-scale operators that have trouble accessing larger online retail channels, plans to use the new capital to continue building partnerships and expanding customer reach within Southeast Asia. Currently it has 2,000 sellers in Thailand and Singapore, and it plans to open the platform to vendors in Indonesia soon.

Singapore-based Wavemaker Partners, Japan's Digital Garage, and Beenext also participated in this round. For Beenext and Sequoia, it is the second investment in Zilingo; the two firms contributed $2 million last November.

Sellers on Zilingo can access a suite of support mechanisms, including apps for inventory management, pickup scheduling, and sales analytics. The company charges a 10-20% commission on successful transactions to cover promotion, packaging, and operations costs.

Zilingo's most prominent competitor is Zalora, the Rocket Internet-backed online fashion portal that operates across Southeast Asia. A number of other companies focus on smaller parts of the market, such as mother and child-focused retailer Orami, formed from the merger of Ardent Capital-backed Moxy and Velos Partners' portfolio company Bilna.

Unlike these platforms, Zilingo primarily focuses on small fashion brands with only a few outlets, which collectively make up an estimated 60% of retail sales but that other portals are reluctant to partner with individually due to their low market penetration.

Zilingo believes that by giving sellers the freedom to set their own prices, and avoiding the cost of housing product itself, it can create a marketplace with unique appeal to consumers.

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Consumer
• Technology
• Early-stage
• Thailand
• TMT
• Venturra Partners
• Sequoia Capital