ShopUp raises $75m in series B funding

Bangladesh’s largest full-stack B2B commerce platform ShopUp officially announced on Tuesday that the startup has successfully raised $75 million in a series B funding round led by Valar Ventures. 

This round also includes investments from Prosus Ventures along with existing investors Flourish Ventures, Sequoia Capital India, and Veon Ventures, making it the largest series B funding for a B2B commerce platform in South Asia. 

This new round of funding comes only 10 months after the startup announced its series A funding of $22.5 million. 

This round brings ShopUp’s total funding to over $110 million, making it the best-funded start-up in Bangladesh so far.

ShopUp’s goal is to cater to all small and medium enterprises (SMEs) by creating easy access to B2B sourcing, providing last mile logistics and also by providing these registered SMEs with working capital solutions with the help of partner financial institutions. 

Currently, Bangladesh has the most fragmented offline retailers in the South Asian region, with the total number hitting 4.5 million -- one for every 35 people. 

It is estimated that about 98% of Bangladesh’s retail market is fragmented. 

The startup was formed by four co-founders: Afeef Zaman, the CEO; Ataur Rahim Chowdhury, chief product officer; Sujaya Ali, chief business officer; and Navaneetha Krishnan J, chief technology officer. 

“Our mission is to put 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,” Zaman said in a statement. 

At present, the company is working with one million such small businesses to help them grow which can have a major significance in the advancement of the country’s GDP. 

To put things in perspective, 68% of the total GDP was from household consumption in 2019. 

One of ShopUp’s services, REDX, is the market leader of last-mile logistics in the country, which is operating in 493 upazilas with more than 3,500 agents providing doorstep delivery to the end customers.  

Mokam is another of its services, through which shop owners can source their products from the country’s largest manufacturers, producers, and distributors on credit.  

The company started its journey back in 2018 and within a year, it already had 100,000 SMEs on its platform. This number more than doubled within September of the same year. 

ShopUp secured its first funding of $1.6 million from Omidyar Network in November 2018.  

According to the company, it has enjoyed a 1,300% growth in revenue and 1,100% growth in the number of total shipments in the last 12 months. 

The rapid growth of the startup enabled it to receive “The Best Startup Award” from Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina back in 2019. 

In February 2020, ShopUp acquired Indian e-commerce startup Voonik.