Monk’s Hill leads $20m round of Singapore-based ecommerce roll-up firm

Singapore-based Rainforest, a startup that acquires and scales ecommerce brands, has raised US$20 million in a pre-series A round led by Monk’s Hill Ventures.

Other investors in the oversubscribed round include January Capital, Crossbeam Venture Partners, Amasia, and Lo & Behold Group. Existing backers Nordstar and Insignia also chipped in.

The Rainforest team / Photo credit: Rainforest

Rainforest is an Asia-focused ecommerce roll-up firm that offers entrepreneurs an exit and then grows the acquired brands on a global scale. With the fresh funding, the startup, which focuses on third-party brands on Amazon, said it now has over US$50 million in its war chest for acquisitions.

According to its statement, Rainforest will use the fresh capital to acquire more Asia-based ecommerce brands, aiming to register a 3x growth in its current portfolio of brands by the end of the year. The roll-up firm said its portfolio has seen over 50% improvements in annual growth rates post-acquisition to date.

The new funding comes after the startup emerged out of stealth mode earlier this year, announcing a seed round of US$36.5 million in May. The company has since acquired six ecommerce brands, most of which are based in Asia.

See also: Why these ex-Carousell, Fave execs raised $36.5m to join the global Amazon roll-up frenzy

The company is led by CEO JJ Chai, who previously held executive positions at Airbnb and online marketplace Carousell. Meanwhile, Rainforest’s chief financial officer Jason Tan formerly held the same position at both financial services firm Ovo and rewards platform Fave.

Rainforest also announced the appointment of Yev Ivanko as its vice president of acquisitions and Christine Ng as vice president of brands. Ivanko has earlier served as the CEO and co-founder of NimbleSeller, while Ng formerly led marketing activities for unicorns Away and ClassPass.