Japan-China e-commerce business gets $68m Series C
Inagora, a VC-backed e-commerce platform that supplies Japanese products to Chinese consumers, has received $68 million in Series C funding from Itochu Corp, KDDI Corporation, and SBI Holdings.
The company was founded in 2014 and launched Wangdougongzhu.com – borrowing the Chinese name of literary fairytale “The Princess and the Pea” – the following year. As of November, more than 40,000 products under 1,500 brands were available on the platform. It is headquartered in Tokyo with offices in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong.
Inagora will use the capital to strengthen its team, improve its platform infrastructure, develop its logistics capabilities – the company recently established a distribution system with several leading Chinese wholesalers – and expand into other Asian markets. Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan are of particular interest, according to a statement.
The Series C takes the total capital raised by Inagora to more than $110 million. It previously received $46 million across Series A, Series A-plus and Series B rounds in February, May and November of last year. Investors include Ventech China, ZhenFund, IDG Capital, World Innovation Lab, and several Japanese venture capital firms.
A separate statement from Wangdougongzhu indicated that Itochu’s investment in Inagora was $40 million. The Japanese conglomerate, which owns food and fashion brands and operates a retail network of more than 12,000 stores globally, will use Inagora as its cross-border e-commerce partner.
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