Carousell spins $35m series B to expand community shopping app

Carousell’s app.

From the way Siu Rui Quek describes it, you know his startup hasn’t produced the usual kind of shopping app. He talks of the community, of users staying up well past midnight browsing the new stuff that flies in, of people using it each day for even longer than Instagram. He doesn’t compare it to Amazon.

That startup, Carousell, is today taking another step forward with the announcement of US$35 million in series B funding. The investment is lead by Rakuten Ventures, with Sequoia India, Golden Gate Ventures, and 500 Startups also contributing some of the cash.

Indian intrigue

The Singapore-based team has already taken the app, which blends new and used items sort of like a classified listings site except that it’s all done in a streamlined mobile app, to six other locations. The latest is Hong Kong.

“A big part of this round will be just accelerating our international expansion,” says Siu Rui Quek, Carousell’s CEO, speaking over Skype from the startup’s HQ.

Quek Siu Rui, co-founder and CEO of Carousell, which first launched in 2012. Photo credit: Carousell.

“We brought on JJ Chai earlier this year, actually just three or four months ago, to lead our international team. He was the first guy at Airbnb for Southeast Asia and was instrumental in growing the team to a hundred-plus people and to one of its fastest growing regions in the world.”

Jia Jih Chai, like Carousell’s trio of co-founders, is Singaporean.

“We’re still in the process of selecting the next few markets – but it’s certainly going to be beyond Southeast Asia” he adds.

How about India, I proffer. Especially as Sequoia India contributed some of the cash. But Siu Rui demurs.

When the team weighs up the next country to make a move, they look at places where people are very mobile-first and there’s good infrastructure in terms of things like mobile web speeds. That makes sense for an app that looks more like Instagram than Craigslist.

“Carousell works well in a good shopping culture,” chimes in fellow co-founder Lucas Ngoo.

Ra-ra-Rakuten

When Rakuten Ventures invested in Carousell’s seed and series A, its parent company was known for its online marketplaces. But this time around, Rakuten is in direct competition with the startup. That’s because Rakuten, which has been struggling in Southeast Asia and a number of other regions of late, in March invested more in its own app for buying and selling new and used items.

From Silicon Valley to Singapore