[Funding alert] Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures leads $75M Series B round in B2B commerce platform ShopUp

ShopUp, Bangladesh’s full-stack B2B commerce platform, which merged with India's fashion-focused etailer Voonik in 2020, Tuesday said it raised $75 million in a Series B round led by Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures. 

The round also included investment from Prosus Ventures (formerly Naspers Ventures) along with existing investors Flourish Ventures, Sequoia Capital India, and VEON Ventures. 

The oversubscribed round claims to be the largest Series B funding for a B2B commerce platform in South Asia. This new round of funding comes only ten months after the startup announced its Series A round of $22.5 million. It brings ShopUp’s total funding to over $110 million. During this round, the startup has also increased its ESOP pool by three-fold. 

ALSO READ

[Funding Alert] Sequoia Capital India, Flourish Ventures invest $22.5M in Bangladesh-based startup ShopUp

Bangladesh is home to one of the most fragmented retail markets in Asia, with 98 percent of all retail consumption happening through 4.5 million small neighbourhood mom and pop retail shops spread out across the country.

Afeef Zaman, CEO and Co-founder, ShopUp, said,

“Our mission is to put 4.5 million small retailers in the driving seat of Bangladesh’s economic growth. We are building best-in-class infrastructure to support retail operations all over the country, adding new categories to serve the underserved small retailers, and launching new financial products to meet the unarticulated needs of the retailers we serve.”

ShopUp launched three products to remove the blockers within the traditional supply chain, logistics, and financing — Mokam (a one-stop B2B commerce app); REDX (an end-to-end logistics platform); and Baki (a buy now, pay later (BNPL) product for small retailers). 

ShopUp’s Mokam helps neighbourhood mom and pop shops by enabling access to the largest catalogue of products with 24 hour doorstep delivery. It has partnered with the country’s largest manufacturers, producers, and distributors to ensure the best pricing for these products. Additionally, shop owners can source these products on credit without having to pay upfront by accessing ShopUp’s BNPL product embedded within the app. 

ShopUp opened its countrywide logistics network in February 2020 as a new end-to-end third-party logistics (3PL) service provider REDX. Within four months, it claimed to become the largest third-party last-mile service provider in the country, delivering more than 50 percent of all 3PL ecommerce shipments.  

Over the past 12 months, ShopUp has witnessed over 13X growth in revenue and 11X growth in the number of total shipments. Headquartered in Dhaka, ShopUp opened an office in Bengaluru last year, where its tech and engineering teams are based. 

James Fitzgerald, Founding Partner, Valar Ventures, said,

“The leadership team at ShopUp has shown strong execution capabilities over the last twelve months. They became clear market leaders with double-digit growth across three products built for the underserved small businesses in Bangladesh. In fast-growing frontier economies like Bangladesh, small businesses are the primary driver of the economy. We are excited to partner with Afeef’s vision of building a connected ecosystem of products to fast-track their transition to the online economy.”