HipVan targets millennial shoppers with $3.3M series A funding

Singaporean ecommerce site HipVan has completed its series A round of funding, worth S$4.7 million (US$3.32 million), the startup announced today. The round was led by Singapore-based venture capital firm Golden Gate Ventures. East Ventures also participated in the round, along with existing investors Toivo Annus, co-founder of Skype, and LionRock Global.

HipVan is an online store specializing in designer furniture and lifestyle products. The company will use the funding “quite evenly to grow the business,” co-founder and CEO Danny Tan tells Tech in Asia. The company plans to grow its investment into its private label of products, to increase the range of available products, and offer better pricing, Danny says.

This brings HipVan’s total funding to S$6.35 million (US$4.5 million), after last year raising about US$1.3 million for its seed round in two stages. Danny did not disclose the equity the startup gave for this investment, or the runway it gives the company.

HipVan currently stocks more than 20,000 products, the company claims, and sees over 150,000 visitors per month on its store. Its annualized revenue stood at S$4 million (US$2.84 million) over the last five months of 2014. Danny would not comment on latest revenue figures, but mentioned HipVan has grown its orders 370 percent year-on-year (cumulative orders from January to August) since last year.

Golden opportunity

Golden Gate Ventures took an interest in HipVan due to Danny’s experience as an entrepreneur and the company’s position in the region’s ecommerce space.

“We believe in the future of ecommerce in Southeast Asia, and were excited by the explosive growth of HipVan,” Vinnie Lauria, founding partner of Golden Gate, says in a statement. Danny adds: “We’ve known Vinnie since he stepped foot in Singapore.” The fact that Golden Gate has invested in ecommerce startups in the country, such as Redmart and Carousell, made it the right choice for the startup, he says.

HipVan now looks to grow its share in Singapore’s S$3 billion (US$2.1 billion) home market. “It’s one of the most exciting spaces in ecommerce today,” Danny points out.

Both the furniture industry and ecommerce have been around for a while, he explains. Now, however, a whole generation of consumers has grown up accustomed to shopping online and whose needs are no longer cool gadgets and video games, but furniture and home accessories, groceries, and children’s accessories. That’s the opportunity and the challenge for HipVan to grow even more in the future, he says.