Indonesian e-commerce marketplace Ula raises $87m
Ula, a leading B2B e-commerce marketplace in Indonesia, has raised $87 million in a Series B round co-led by Prosus Ventures, Tencent Holdings and B Capital Group.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Bezos Expeditions and Southeast Asian investors Northstar Group, AC Ventures, and Citius also participated. Existing investors Lightspeed India Partners, Sequoia Capital India, Quona Capital, and Alter Global re-upped.
Previous funding includes a $10.5 million seed round in June 2020 and an $20 million Series A round in January 2021.
Ula was founded in 2020 by Nipun Mehra, a former executive of Flipkart in India and ex-partner at Sequoia Capital India, Alan Wong, previously of Amazon, Derry Sakti, who oversaw P&G’s operations in Indonesia, and Riky Tenggara, formerly of Lazada and aCommerce.
The company claims to have grown 230x in 20 months since launch, currently offering over 6,000 products and serving more than 70,000 traditional retail stores on its platform, with teams spread across three countries.
Operations include support for small retailers with product sourcing, supply chain and inventory solutions, as well as working capital. This also includes helping store owners stock only the inventory they need and providing them with a data-enabled credit offering.
The company recently launches a buy now, pay later (BNPL) option, which alone is expected to be a $150 billion market in Indonesia, according to a statement. The idea is that many store owners are limited by their access to traditional banking services and rely on daily cash flow income.
The fresh proceeds will be used to invest in domestic growth and exploring international expansion across Southeast Asia, while adding new categories, expanding the BNPL offering, and building new technology, supply chain, and logistics infrastructure.
This will involve a continued focus on tier-two to tier-four cities, rural areas and hard-to-reach neighborhoods, where access to resources and logistical infrastructure is much more challenging.
“Ula’s team is laser-focused on revolutionizing Indonesia’s retail supply chain and driving financial inclusion through combining modern retail technology with the low-cost, local structure of traditional retail,” said Sachin Bhanot, head of Southeast Asia investments at Prosus.
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