Rocket Internet shuts ecommerce marketplace Kaymu in 2 Asian countries

Billionaire Rocket Internet founder Oliver Samwer at a conference in 2013. Photo credit: Wikipedia.

Kaymu, Rocket Internet’s online marketplace, is shutting down in the Philippines and Cambodia. The closure in Cambodia is announced in a post on its site.

UPDATE on October 7 5:15 PM: An earlier version of the article erroneously stated that Kaymu has shut operations in Myanmar. It has merged with Shop, Rocket’s other ecommerce store in the country with staff members integrated under one umbrella. We regret the error.

The homepage of the ecommerce store mentions it’s now present in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Saudi Arabia.

Niroshan Balasubramaniam, Kaymu’s co-founder and managing director, told Tech in Asia in September 2015 that the venture looks at countries in which the retail landscape is fragmented, and where there aren’t many malls and mega-retailers.

“This leaves the emerging middle class underserved and hungry for consumption,” he explained.

At last count, Kaymu Cambodia had 36 employees and over 12,000 products listed. Figures for Myanmar and the Philippines were not available.

Today’s notice on Kaymu Cambodia’s site

Scaling back

In June, Rocket Internet announced it would be merging complementary ecommerce stores Daraz and Kaymu across Asia with centralized operations in Pakistan.

Daraz operates as a “managed marketplace” similar to Lazada where sellers are curated and authentic products guaranteed.

Kaymu’s model is different – businesses are free to list products on the site and source orders directly from consumers. It does not do its own deliveries or focus on original products alone.

Daraz raised US$55 million in series A funding last year while Kaymu’s been surviving on its 2013 seed funding round according to Crunchbase.

The German startup juggernaut announced a combined loss of almost US$700 million across its portfolio startups for the first six months of the year.