Singapore’s TradeGecko seals Series A round

The only problem was that idea wasn't good enough.

"We sat down and sketched out the business model and it just didn't work," recalls Cameron Priest, CEO of TradeGecko. "We found most of the clients we were talking to didn't have their own back-end system, or if they did, it wasn't very good."

It was at that point the young start-up made the difficult decision to scrap its first plan, give clients what they needed, and build an inventory software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform from scratch. Within a month of landing in Singapore, the new start-up had completely repositioned and rebranded itself as TradeGecko.

Three years on, TradeGecko has just received a Series A round worth $6.5 million led by NSI Ventures and existing backers Jungle Ventures. Including previous seed stage investments - from Jungle, JFDI.Asia, Wavemaker Labs, Golden Gate Ventures and 500 Startups - the business has raised $8.5 million to date.

The original team of three has grown to 60 people with offices in the Singapore and Manila, serving customers in 100 countries. Over the past three years, the start-up claims to have facilitated nearly $1 billion in transactions. Now TradeGecko is in the process of launching operations in the San Francisco.

"The goal is to set up sales and support there," explains Priest. "We have 48% of our customers based in North America, and we think it is really important to serve them by being in the market."

Unlike many Asian start-ups - particularly in the SaaS space - TradeGecko will not move its headquarters to the US, with core functions and product development set to remain in Singapore. This was not always the plan. The company was initially adamant that it would raise capital from US investors and then relocate.

"We had seen some very good term sheets, and worked with some great US investors, but I then got the feeling that we could do this from Singapore," says Priest. "There is sense that if you are a global company you have got to move to San Francisco but there are now a few New Zealand start-ups that have shown this is not the case - although no-one has done it here in Singapore yet."

TradeGecko's priority is now rapid growth. The plan is to expand to over 200 staff in the next year and possibly look at other office locations in Australia and Hong Kong. As part of these efforts, the company has appointed Nathalie Benzing, former global head of post-merger integration at Autodesk, as its COO.

Priest says the goal is to maintain monthly recurring revenue (MRR) growth rate of 20%.

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• Topics
• Venture
• Early-stage
• Technology
• Southeast Asia
• Singapore
• Southeast Asia
• Venture
• Technology
• NSI Ventures
• Jungle Ventures
• Golden Gate Ventures
• JFDI.Asia