KKR commits $45m to Philippines B2B e-commerce player

The private equity firm is leading a Series C round currently being finalized. The round is said to be significantly oversubscribed, having drawn keen interest from new and existing investors.

Previous investors include Temasek Holdings-affiliated Pavilion Capital, Tencent Holdings, the International Finance Corporation, JG Summit, Robinsons Retail, Wavemaker Partners, Saison Capital, and the Investment & Capital Corporation of the Philippines.

GrowSari helps neighbourhood retailers (sari-sari stores), roadside and market restaurants (carinderia), and pharmacies develop digital services in areas such as telecom reloads, wallet top-ups, inventory procurement, bill payments, e-commerce, and wifi. It also generates data and insights into the operations of these businesses to be used by manufacturers and distributors.

The company’s stated mission is to provide local communities with more comprehensive retail offerings, creating a positive socio-economic impact on the lives of MSME owners and the communities they serve. It is present in 220 municipalities across the regions of Luzon, the country’s largest and most populous island.

The leadership team is composed of former employees of Johnston & Johnson, Uber, Globe Telecom, and GCash. Co-founder and CEO Reymund Rollan has consumer consulting experience at Unilever, Boston Consulting Group, and Procter & Gamble.

“GrowSari is aligned with one of our core technology investment themes in Southeast Asia, which is supporting MSMEs with software and financial services,” Louis Casey, KKR’s growth technology lead in Southeast Asia, said in a statement.

“Reymund and the team at GrowSari are excellent operators who have built an impressive flywheel that is powered by a number of proprietary applications. They have also built a very efficient and repeatable go-to-market motion that is underpinning their impressive growth.”

GrowSari has recorded a 6.5x increase in gross merchandise value since 2019 and a 2.5x increase in revenue over the same period. This has been attributed in part to strong tailwinds around digital adoption, proximity shopping, and general economic growth in the Philippines.

The plan is to expand the domestic footprint with a focus on the Visayas and Mindanao regions. There will also be a financial services capabilities buildout with a view to improving the customer experience at sari-sari stores and expanding MSMEs’ access to credit and basic financial services

KKR is expected to contribute to these developments through its in-house MSME services expertise. Previous investments in this space include Vietnam’s KiotViet and Australia’s MYOB, as well as NetStars and Yayoi of Japan.

The GP's first and most significant private equity investment in the Philippines is Voyager Innovations, a financial technology provider also backed by Tencent and IFC, that is best known for its PayMaya payments service. The company has raised around USD 500m to date.

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Consumer
• Support services
• Technology
• Expansion
• Philippines
• KKR
• Financial Services
• digitalization
• SME