HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam, Nov. 20, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Sendo, Vietnam's leading C2C e-commerce marketplace, has announced that it has successfully secured an investment of USD 61 million in its Series C financing round, which represents the largest for the Company to date. Sendo had previously raised a USD 51 million Series B financing round in August 2018.
This Series C financing round again sees strong support from Sendo's existing investors including SBI Group, BEENOS, SoftBank Ventures Asia, Daiwa PI Partners, and Digital Garage. In addition, new financial and strategic investors in this round include the likes of EV Growth from Indonesia, and Kasikornbank from Thailand.
Hai Linh Tran, the CEO and co-founder of Sendo, said that the funds will be used to expand the breadth of its existing integrated platform offering to both sellers and consumers, as well as to further deepen its technology moat with A.I. and machine learning to enhance the overall consumer journey experience.
"While we have hit our annualized GMV target of USD 1 billion earlier than expected, we care much more about meaningful and sustainable GMV growth, which we believe has to come from consumer stickiness owing to a great shopping experience. Sendo's integrated ecosystem spanning marketplace, advertising, logistics and financial services is designed to ensure that, and that goes well with our monetization strategy into multiple revenue streams and ultimately, our path to profitability," Linh said.
Daniel Kang, Senior Partner and Managing Director of Softbank Ventures Asia, said that being a homegrown company gives Sendo a deep understanding of the Vietnamese local market and real consumer preferences, a key advantage that the Company is well-positioned to leverage on based on its C2C marketplace business model. "Sendo's strength in utilizing the capabilities of its partners within the ecosystem has essentially created a win-win for merchants, 3PLs, advertising companies and financial institutions. The Company's marketplace model is extremely well-aligned to address the needs of typical Vietnamese sellers and consumers, and more importantly, to empower them," he said.
Founded in 2012 as part of Vietnam's largest IT service company FPT Corporation, with a spin-off completed in 2014, Sendo is a leading local presence in the country's burgeoning e-commerce sector. The Company differentiates itself by focusing on, beyond Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, the largely untapped tier 2 cities, home to 70 million Vietnamese people. Sendo currently caters to more than 500,000 sellers, with an estimated 17 million SKUs listed on its platform. It serves more than 12 million customers across all 63 provinces in Vietnam. Being the first e-commerce company to be awarded an e-wallet license, the Company's e-wallet service Senpay currently ranks 3rd in terms of transaction value across Vietnam. Sendo expects to further expand its core e-commerce business in a fast yet sustainable manner, which would set a strong foundation for its future monetization strategy.
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