Thailand's Flash Express secures $150m in new funding

The Series D extension was led by SCB10X, the corporate venture capital arm of Siam Commercial Bank, with participation from local strategic player Chanwanich Security Printing.

Buer Capital, a venture capital firm with ties to Chinese technology entrepreneurs, took the lead in the Series E. There were also re-ups from SCB10X, the Electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP) Ecosystem Fund, Oil & Retail Business (OR), TCP Group consumer goods unit Durbell, and Krungsri Finnovate, the venture capital arm of Bank of Ayudhya.

Flash Express closed its initial Series D tranche at $200 million last October. It deliberately sought out local strategic backers – OR led the round with support from Durbell and Krungsri Finnovate – as part of a domestic consolidation agenda. Before that, the company relied heavily on Chinese investors, among them Gaorong Capital and eWTP, which is backed by Alibaba Group and Ant Group.

At the time of the Series D, Flash Express was Thailand's number two express delivery player, trailing only Kerry Logistics. It was delivering one million parcels a day – in a national market thought to amount to five million parcels – through a network of more than 5,000 branches across all 77 provinces. It now claims to occupy top spot, with a peak daily volume of two million parcels.

Flash Express was founded in 2018 by Komsan Saelee, who drew his inspiration for the business model from China. Saelee, a serial entrepreneur, met Weijie Di during his exploratory trips to China. Di, who previously spent eight years at Alibaba working on projects like the Alipay QR code payment system, came in a co-founder and COO.

The company has added warehousing and fulfillment solutions to its core delivery offering and it is looking to introduce other value-added business lines. Elsewhere, efforts have been made to standardize and digitize the delivery process to provide greater transparency and more competitive pricing to customers. The new funding will support operational improvements and technology development.

Southeast Asian expansion is also on the agenda, with Lee saying in a statement that services would likely launch outside of Thailand in the fourth quarter. He also noted that Flash Express would announce joint business initiatives with several of its investors.

Speaking to AVCJ on closing the Series D last year, CFO Richard Tang also emphasized the partnership approach – in terms of domestic and cross-border expansion. While Flash Express' Thai corporate backers expect the company to support their supply chains, benefits could flow both ways, including the prospect of co-developing services for customers.

"We were founded in Thailand, but most of our shareholders come from the China market. As a Thai company – or in the future a Southeast Asian company – we want more partners from Southeast Asia," Tang said. "We are currently second in Thailand and our aim is to become number one, so we need partners to help us achieve that. We will continue to diversify our shareholder base."

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Support services
• Expansion
• Thailand
• Growth capital
• Logistics
• eWTP