Asia brand aggregator raises $40m
Una Brands, an aggregator of e-commerce brands with a presence across Asia, has launched with A$50 million ($40 million) in seed funding from 500 Startups, Kingsway Capital, 468 Capital, Presight Capital, and Global Founders Capital.
Maximilian Bittner, former CEO of Southeast Asia-focused e-commerce platform Lazada and now CEO of Vestiaire Collective, has also contributed capital.
Una was founded by Kiren Tanna, previously Asia CEO of Rocket Internet and co-founder of Foodpanda and ZEN Rooms. Rocket Internet incubated Lazada and eventually exited to Alibaba Group. Tanna’s co-founders – Adrian Johnston, Kushal Patel, Tobias Heusch, and Srinivasan Shridharan – have worked for the likes of Lazada, Ninja Van, and Boston Consulting Group.
The company will leverage the experience and networks of its founders to source, build and optimize a portfolio of e-commerce brands. It claims to use advanced technology to optimize and automate company identification, product placement, and marketing across a broad range of distribution channels. Bringing brands together under a single umbrella also allows for internal efficiencies.
Una expects to buy e-commerce businesses with A$400,000 to A$10 million in annual revenue and strong independent branding. It is platform agnostic and will consider start-ups selling via any of the major channels, from Amazon and Lazada to Shopee and Shopify.
"When a business gets beyond a certain size, business owners find that they do not have the time to do what they love as they get bogged down in the operational process. By partnering with Una Brands, brands can turbocharge their growth into new markets and channels,” Johnston, who leads the Australia office, said in a statement.
He added that there are more than 10 million third-party sellers on regional platforms across Asia Pacific. Meanwhile, lockdowns and social distancing measures implemented to curb the spread of COVID-19 have accelerated existing consumer trends, with e-commerce seeing a surge in demand.
E-commerce agglomeration strategies are relatively rare among VC-backed start-ups in Asia. E-commerce enablers, which help businesses create online shopping platforms by providing a lot of the back-office infrastructure, are more common. Asia Partners recently led a funding round for Southeast Asia-focused enabler SCI Ecommerce.
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