Thai logistics startup Flash Express banks $200m in series D round

Ecommerce logistics firm Flash Express said it closed a US$200 million series D funding round led by PTTOR, the flagship oil and retail arm of Thai conglomerate PTT.

Consumer goods distributor Durbell and Bank of Ayudhya’s corporate VC arm Krungsri Finnovate also participated in the round, according to a statement. This pushes the company’s total funds raised to date to roughly US$400 million.

Photo credit: Flash Express

With the backing of these investors, Flash Express said it aims to add more service offerings and further expand into other Southeast Asian countries. The company told Tech in Asia that it’s still in the process of evaluating which markets to enter, but Flash Express’ goal is to have a footprint across all countries in the region.

“More importantly, we intend to assist [small and medium-sized enterprises] in lowering their investment costs which we believe will provide long-term benefit for the overall Thai economy in the digital era,” said Flash Express CEO Komsan Lee.

The Thai-Chinese company entered Thailand in 2018, investing US$77.9 million over five years to expand in the country and extend its reach into other Asian nations as a whole, including Laos, Malaysia, and Myanmar. The company said that since its last funding round, which came around the same time last year, its average daily volume grew 5x while its number of branches grew 2.5x.

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Flash Express honed in on developing in-house technology and big data to digitize the logistics process. It also owns its own fleet of delivery vehicles and employs its own drivers – unlike other players that act as marketplaces for available driver-partners and their vehicles.

Since its launch, the company said it has grown to become the second-largest private express delivery provider in the country, covering 77 provinces with over 5,000 service branches.