Bangladesh-based business-to-business (B2B) commerce platform ShopUp, which merged with Bengaluru-based online fashion retailer Voonik in February 2020, has raised $75 million in a Series B round of funding led by Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures, it said on Tuesday.
The company has now cumulatively raised more than $110 million.
The round, which also saw participation from Prosus Ventures along with existing investors Flourish Ventures, Sequoia Capital India and VEON Ventures marks the first investment by Valar Ventures and Prosus Ventures in Bangladesh.
The Dhaka-headquartered startup now connects small retailers and shop owners to large manufacturers and distributors to help them source goods. It also offers Mokam, which is its B2B e-commerce app.
It has two other products, RedX, which is a logistics arm, and Baki, a buy now, pay later product for small retailers.
In 2020, ShopUp established an India presence, merging with the B2B business and tech platform of Sequoia-backed Voonik Technologies.
Voonik founders Sujayath Ali and Navaneetha Krishnan had joined ShopUp as founders following the merger.
ShopUp opened an office in Bengaluru last year, with a large part of its tech and engineering talent based out of India.
ShopUp has witnessed more than 13x growth in revenue and 11x growth in the number of total shipments, it said.
“They became clear market leaders with double-digit growth across three products built for the underserved small businesses in Bangladesh. In fast-growing frontier economies like Bangladesh, small businesses are the primary driver of the economy,” said James Fitzgerald, founding partner of Valar Ventures.
ShopUp competes with well-funded B2B companies such as Udaan, which has a network of more than 25,000 sellers, connecting them with 3 million users in 900 cities.
India has more than 15 million small manufacturers and over 30 million traders, retailers and service businesses.
Founded in 2013, Voonik Technologies had bagged about $47 million from marquee investors since its inception, according to data intelligence platform VCCEdge.
Source: Mint