Zilingo joins heavyweight class of Southeast Asian ecommerce with $54m series C raise

The Zilingo team, including co-founders Dhruv Kapoor (second from left) and Ankiti Bose (third from right) / Photo credit: Zilingo

Among the crop of ecommerce sites that Southeast Asia has produced in recent years, only a small number have secured the brand recognition, cross-border reach, and venture funding that could realistically allow them to challenge giants like Alibaba and Amazon. It looks like another has just joined their ranks.

Zilingo – an online marketplace that connects shoppers with small independent fashion designers across South and Southeast Asia – has secured US$54 million in a series C funding round co-led by Belgian investment firm Sofina, Burda Principal Investments, and Sequoia Capital.

The capital injection comes just seven months after a series B fundraise that saw the startup net US$17 million. According to Sequoia India managing director Shailendra Singh, the latest round was finalized a mere matter of weeks after the series B close.

Zilingo co-founder and CEO Ankiti Bose told Tech in Asia that the fresh funds will be used to accelerate growth in Indonesia – which the startup has identified as a key growth target – and to push into other promising Southeast Asian markets including the Philippines.

“The plan is also to further expand the supply base across Cambodia and Bangladesh in addition to our existing ones in ASEAN markets,” she added.

The capital will also be invested in the development of new service features relating to areas such as discovery, recommendations, payments, and analytics for merchants, she said.

Top 10

Zilingo – which claims to have seen its revenues grow tenfold over the past year – already offers a suite of value-add services to sellers, helping them with matters from cataloguing and marketing through to logistics and operational finance.

The series C round takes Zilingo’s total funding to date to US$82 million. While falling substantially short of the US$238 million raised in total by key competitor Zalora, the deal still puts Zilingo inside Southeast Asia’s top 20 best-funded startups, according to Tech in Asia data. 

It also makes Zilingo the ninth highest-funded ecommerce portal in the region, and the second highest-funded fashion specialist after Rocket Internet-backed Zalora.

No shortage of competition

As it pushes to expand its presence in the market, Zilingo has no shortage of potential competitors.

Chief among them is Zalora, the Southeast Asia-focused fashion ecommerce site established by German venture builder Rocket Internet in 2012.

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