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MANILA, Philippines, March 2, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- SariSuki, a fast growing social commerce startup, is expanding into quick commerce with a vision to build an end-to-end eGrocery platform in the Philippines. With the launch of this new service, SariSuki is now able to create greater value for producers at source as well as hyper-convenience for consumers. This expansion follows significant fundraising that counts Openspace, Susquehanna International Group (SIG), Global Founders Capital (GFC), Saison Capital, JG Digital Equity Ventures, and Foxmont Capital Partners amongst those who participated. The latest US$7.1M round took total funding for the company to US$10.5M in 2021.
SariSuki co-founders in one of the first quick commerce dark stores in Metro Manila. From left to right: Bam Mejia - Chief Commercial Officer, Philippe Lorenzo - Chief Operating Officer, Angelo Lee - Head of Strategy and Fundraising, Brian Cu - Chief Executive Officer
Capturing the end-to-end opportunity in e-grocery market with quick commerce expansion
Global and regional investors have taken notice of the size and potential of the e-commerce retail market as well as the social impact the company can have through its unique model. The Philippines' e-commerce market size is estimated to reach USD$15 billion by 2025 (Statista) but despite this huge market size, the adoption of e-commerce into the grocery sector remains low, with only 3% of businesses operating online. With the pandemic further exposing this issue, SariSuki started in 2021 with a mission to empower communities with more options to shop for high quality groceries online – which it achieves by buying fresh produce in bulk from local farmers and offering them to the local community at a discounted price.
SariSuki is now entering quick commerce on the back of 36x growth in the past 9 months. The business has served >60,000 consumers and grown the team to over 100 employees. Importantly, SariSuki has the unique advantage of having built a strong and robust supply chain at speed, which will serve a network of dark stores for its quick commerce service. SariSuki's quick commerce app commits to delivering high-quality produce in under 15 minutes within its coverage areas.
"We are a set of founders that grew up in the Philippines and have an understanding of our market. This, combined with our background in scaling up large tech companies in the region, made us realize that we can do more with the supply chain infrastructure we have built. Quick commerce is a way for us to expand into serving the segment of our market that seeks hyper-convenience for a hyper-local product mix for their daily needs," said Brian Cu, Co-Founder of SariSuki.
Creating greater value at source through social commerce
To address long-existing supply chain inefficiencies, SariSuki adopts an agent-assisted model, servicing its consumers through Community Leaders. Members of communities who set up their business as a Community Leader see meaningful income expansion as they profit from selling produce whilst performing the last mile fulfillment. This model has enabled SariSuki to offer supermarket quality products at wet market prices.
"SariSuki's increasing sector dominance has resulted from addressing key pain points and barriers to e-commerce adoption with a model that builds confidence amongst, and value for, consumers. We recognised that the trust that those communities are putting in their Community Leader, who consistently delivers high-quality local produce, will help to rapidly accelerate vital e-commerce adoption," said Hian Goh, co-founder of Openspace.
A founding team emerging from Southeast Asia's scale-up tech giants
SariSuki was founded by an impressive team emerging from within Southeast Asia's scale-up tech giants. Brian Cu was a co-founder of Zalora Philippines and Grab Philippines, where he assumed the role of Country Head and drove the super-app's exponential growth over the past 7 years.
"In a complex market like the Philippines, hyperlocal expertise is crucial to lead the quick commerce sector. Brian and his team are proven entrepreneurs with a deep understanding of what it takes to drive meaningful local adoption and the success of SariSuki's operations over the past year is a testament to this. Their know-how and career-long relationships with stakeholders across the supply chain has set them up with the best opportunity to succeed and we look forward to being a part of their growth story," said Chris Sirise, Saison Capital Partner.
"We are honored to back a stellar team bringing convenience and a world-class customer experience to groceries shopping in the Philippines. In our view, the high density, growing disposable income, maturing digital connectivity and sheer population size in key urban areas in the Philippines, finally set the stage for the next cohort of large consumer-facing tech businesses in the country," concluded Tito Costa, Partner at Global Founders Capital.
About SariSuki
SariSuki is a Philippine Community Group Buying startup for daily essentials and groceries. It aims to provide affordable high quality products via efficient sourcing whilst providing additional livelihood to its community leaders/sellers. The company launched in May 2021 and has grown 36x after 9 months. SariSuki has also launched Supah, a quick commerce app, that aims to deliver groceries in 15 minutes.
About Openspace
Openspace provides venture capital funding to back companies in Southeast Asia creating a transformative impact where tech meets life. By focusing on the fundamentals and with a wide-scale operations team, its 30+ professionals actively partner with its portfolio companies to help build viable and responsible B2B and B2C businesses. This includes GoTo (Gojek), Kumu, Pluang, Biofourmis and Halodoc. Openspace now has 4 funds with over $650M under management, supported by global and regional institutional investors. It also has crypto exposure through its Ocular fund. It is headquartered in Singapore, with active offices in Jakarta, Bangkok, Manila, and Ho Chi Minh City.
About Global Founders Capital (GFC):
Founders drive incredible opportunity in the world, and we are their greatest advocates. That's because our team has built multi-billion dollar technology businesses from scratch and has thrived through all the twists and turns of entrepreneurship along with it. Over the past two decades, we have backed over five hundred entrepreneurs worldwide. Facebook, LinkedIn, Zalando, Slack, Revolut, Canva, DeliveryHero, Lazada, Traveloka, Nium, Moladin, Zepto, Spenmo, Astro represent a few of our global successes. Global Founders Capital manages over $1.2 billion of committed capital and invests out of eleven offices worldwide.
About Susquehanna International Group (SIG)
SIG is a founder-led global quantitative trading and investment firm founded in 1987 with a rigorous analytical approach to decision making. SIG began investing in Asia venture capital in 2005 with an initial focus on China before expanding to South East Asia, Japan and India. SIG invests across the continuum of the venture capital life-cycle, from early to late stage and in a variety of industry sectors. SIG SE Asia is particularly focused on the adaption of business models across countries and regions and makes extensive use of its employees and portfolio companies to provide insights and assistance to founders. Over the last 15+ years, SIG has invested in over 350 companies, deployed over US$3.5b in capital, and achieved IPO/M&A exits in over 70 companies in Asia. Some of the notable companies SIG has invested in include Bytedance, Agora, ClassIn, Kumu, Mobile Premier League, Musical.ly, Ximalaya, Zilingo, among many others.
About Saison Capital:
Saison Capital is an early-stage venture capital fund (pre-seed to Series B) with a focus on emerging markets. We back ambitious founders solving big problems, focused on embedded finance - non-fintech companies expanding into fintech. Each individual in our team comes from an operating background, and we are unafraid to roll up our sleeves to support our founders. We are backed by Credit Saison, a Tokyo-listed 30b AUM consumer finance company with extensive financial services across Asia. https://saisoncapital.com/
