Ninja Van rides SEA ecommerce boom to double annual revenue

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With industry titans Amazon and Alibaba reporting a fall in online revenue and Shopee’s ecommerce sales growth slowing down in its latest quarterly reports, the sector has hit something of a snag.

However, that wasn’t the case just over a year ago when Southeast Asia onboarded 40 million new internet users as countries imposed scattered and impromptu lockdowns to contain the spread of Covid-19.

The gross merchandise value for Southeast Asia’s ecommerce sector, for instance, rose 62% to reach a staggering US$120 billion in 2021 and is on track to hit the US$1 trillion mark by 2030, highlighting the industry’s relative nascency in the region than in more mature markets like the US and China.

Naturally, this meant that shipping volumes were soaring and ecommerce companies began turning to logistics and transportation firms to help process more orders. The most notable beneficiary of this trend was perhaps Indonesia-based J&T Express, which raised US$2.5 billion in a funding round towards the end of 2021 at a valuation of US$20 billion.

Yet, it was also in that year that Ninja Van, the protagonist of today’s premium story, attained unicorn status and brought in Alibaba as an investor.

While the Singapore-based firm remains unprofitable, there’s plenty to like about Ninja Van’s latest full-year results. Our featured story highlights how this Southeast Asian unicorn has narrowed losses and significantly increased revenue but struggles to keep the lid on expenses despite improving gross profit margins.

Today we look at:

• Ninja Van nearly doubling revenue in FYE 2021
• Glints becoming the most heavily funded startup in Southeast Asia’s talent recruitment space
• Other newsy highlights such as GoTo Group buying a crypto exchange and Indonesia launching intercountry QR Codes

P.S.: Founders – if you want to gather a crowd of over 2,000 people from the Asian tech and startup scene to strut your startup’s stuff, then you need to sign up for Startup Factory.

We’re inviting startups with under US$3 million in funding to grab a booth space right in the heart of the Tech in Asia Conference 2022 venue at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore for an entire day to connect with target audiences, conduct user testing, onboard users, or even find partners or investors.

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Stealthily on the rise

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