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E-marketplace Ula raises $87m from Tencent, Jeff Bezos
The B2B e-marketplace's investors include Bezos Expeditions, a venture capital firm owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
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usiness-to-business (B2B) e-marketplace Ula bagged US$87 million in its series-B funding round led by Prosus Ventures, Tencent and B-Capital, with participation from Bezos Expeditions, a venture capital firm owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, among others.
Ula was Bezos Expeditions’ first portfolio in the Southeast Asian online marketplace segment. The venture capital firm has invested in high profile companies such as Airbnb, Twitter and Uber.
Ula cofounder and chief operating officer Riky Tenggara said the company would use the funds to develop new features, including a buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) system, and to expand its logistics infrastructure and supply chains into small Indonesian cities. The company believes the domestic BNPL market is worth $150 billion.
“Solving complex value chain problems in Indonesia is very challenging and impactful,” he said in a press release on Monday. “Our team will try our best to give benefits to millions of warung [kiosks] in Indonesia, especially those outside of the metropolitan areas.”
Riky, along with former P&G employee Derry Sakti and ex-Amazon engineer Alan Wong, founded Ula last year. The B2B marketplace completed its $20 million series-A funding in January and its $10.5 million seed round in June 2020.
Read also: Wholesale marketplace Ula secures $10m in seed funding
The company said it focused on catering to Indonesian warungs, which often struggled with poor capital access, small profit margins and limited product offerings.
Small vendors have become the latest “battlefield” for Indonesian start-ups, with e-commerce heavyweights such as Bukalapak and Tokopedia joining the fray. Bookkeeping and point-of-sale apps have also gained traction among kiosk owners.
Read also: Start-up giants race to digitize ‘warung’
“After more than a decade investing in Southeast Asia, we have seen that companies with a strong social mission can grow rapidly. We share the same goal with Ula to empower small and medium businesses in Indonesia through technology and we hope to support Ula’s growth,” said Patrick Walujo, managing partner at Northstar Group, which also participated in Ula’s series-B round.
Ula claims to have grown 230-fold since its launch 20 months ago. It offers around 6,000 products to 70,000 warung clients.
“Our mission in supporting warung is relevant, especially during the pandemic,” said Ula co-founder Derry, adding that the company aimed to help kiosks’ business rebound from the pandemic-induced economic crunch.
