Nordstar, Insignia back Asia Amazon marketplace consolidator

The Singapore-headquartered company’s strategy is based on the assumption that the proliferation of micro brands will continue, driven by fundamental shifts in consumer behavior and the growth of direct-to-consumer e-commerce. Rainforest plans to buy up a range of Amazon marketplace sellers and use its investment and expertise to help them grow.

There are three founders: CTO Per-Ola Röst, formerly CEO of Seller Matrix, a Singapore start-up that provides analytics tools for Amazon sellers; CEO J.J. Chai, who has held senior positions at Airbnb in Asia and at regional classifieds marketplace Carousell; and CFO Jason Tan, who previously fulfilled the same function at two Indonesia payments businesses, Ovo and Fave.

The seed round comprises $6.5 million in equity funding from Nordstar and Insignia plus a $30 million debt facility from an unnamed US lender, Techcrunch reported. Rainforest, Nordstar, and Insignia all reposted the story on their LinkedIn accounts.

The portfolio already features three brands – acquired for about $1 million each – and there are plans to collect 8-12 in total. Start-ups from across the region, including China, Southeast Asia and Australia, will be considered. They must generate annual sales of $5-10 million with a minimum 15% profit margin.

The common characteristic is that they sell through Amazon’s B2B service, Fulfilled By Amazon. Chai said about 30% of Amazon’s third-party sellers are based in Asia, and he expects more e-commerce aggregators to launch in the region.

The other Southeast Asia-based aggregator that recently received VC funding is Una Brands. Established by a team that has worked for Rocket Internet, Foodpanda, Lazada, and Ninja Van, it secured $40 million in seed funding from 500 Startups, Kingsway Capital, 468 Capital, Presight Capital, and Global Founders Capital.

Una’s strategy and target businesses are much like those of Rainforest. However, Una is platform agnostic and will consider start-ups selling via any of the major channels, from Amazon and Lazada to Shopee and Shopify.

Nordstar is based in the UK and describes itself as a company builder that specializes in developing high-growth, global businesses. Asia portfolio companies include Singapore-based start-up incubator Antler.

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Early-stage
• Technology
• Consumer
• Asia
• Singapore
• TMT
• Insignia Venture Partners