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Cambodian internet startup company Groupin secures US$5M Series A funding

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Groupin, a holding company of e-commerce Little Fashion and digital media firm Mediaload, based in Cambodia, has announced a Series A funding of US$5 million from Mekong-focused private equity firm Belt Road Capital Management (BRCM).

The company claimed that the funding is the largest in the history of Cambodian tech startups.

Groupin was founded by siblings Vichet In, Vichea In, Visal In, and Mayan In. The brothers and sister said that the funding will be used to invest in mobile technology, logistics chain, product vertical expansion, and customer support.

Little Fashion, its fashion and lifestyle e-commerce brand, was launched as an informal Facebook retailer in late 2010 and slowly became an online platform called L192, focussing on omnichannel customer experience. It operates in the low-cost online fashion industry.

Mediaload, on the other hand, is a digital media firm focussed on a content generation of local information with topics ranging from entertainment to sports. It is best known as Khmerload in Cambodia and Myanmarload in Myanmar.

Mediaload claims that it has 8 million monthly users and 20 million social media followers with more than 600 million social impressions a month. On its own, it previously received US$200,000 seed funding from 500 Startups in 2017.

“We see huge potential in Little Fashion’s marketplace. Bringing Mediaload together with the ecommerce platform allows for significant synergies and access to millions of potential customers in both Cambodia and Myanmar,” said Alex Odom, Chief Investment Officer of BRCM.

Vichet In, one of the founders of Groupin, commented on the future of digital media:

“We believe our digital media business model needs to evolve into a content aggregator app. With its operational system and local understanding, Mediaload has a big potential to be a localised super content app,” said In.

Both Little Fashion and Mediaload have operations in Cambodia and Myanmar. Little Fashion started off in 2010 by distributing fashion apparel from China/Thailand into Cambodia, while Mediaload started in 2011 in Cambodia, and in 2016 in Myanmar with a similar content development as US-based Buzzfeed.

 News article retrieved from e27

Mekong-focused Belt Road Capital targets to raise $100 million second fund

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Belt Road Capital Management (BRCM), a Mekong region-focused private equity firm, is targeting to raise up to $100 million for its second fund, according to a top executive with the firm.

“We have had significant interest from investors for a second Mekong-focused fund. We expect the size to be around $75-100 million,” BRCM’s CIO Alex Odom told DEALSTREETASIA.

Set up in 2017, the firm launched its first vehicle with a $50-million corpus. It has deployed around 60 percent of the first fund into six companies across the region, including Digital Classifieds Group, Oway, WeRocket, Sabay Digital and most recently two Vietnamese companies Tima and LeFlair.

Odom said BRCM will announce the seventh deal soon.

He commented: “We have seen a dramatic increase in interest and investment from APAC countries, particularly FDI flowing in from China under the Belt Road Initiative. This is likely to continue to fuel the appetite for a wide variety of investment into these markets which make it an exciting time for fund managers like us to bring in our expertise and local knowledge.”

Odom revealed that the portfolio companies had shown significant uplift in valuations as they were seeking new rounds of funding. Outsized returns were coming to fruition, he added, as the lack of investment capital and information asymmetry in these markets presented a unique opportunity.

The fund manager typically makes investments in the range of $2-7 million for minority stakes at Series A level onwards. Its six portfolio businesses are all tech companies.

Moving forward, BRCM will explore some larger private equity deals in real estate and infrastructure.

“We are now heavily exploring the real estate sector, at the moment focusing on opportunities first in Cambodia before expanding to other markets in the region,” said the CIO.

“The Mekong Region will continue its rapid expansion over the next 3-5 years as more young consumers come onboard in Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Laos. We believe the consumption and transaction trends will be increasingly digital in these markets and have structured our investments to take advantage of this movement,” said Odom, adding that there was an increasing convergence of venture capital and private equity investments, as nearly all companies these days utilize and rely upon technology.

Source retrieved from Deal Street Asia

Leflair raises $7mn from GS Shop and Belt Road Capital

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Vietnamese premium outlet online platform Leflair announced on January 12 its latest series-B funding round from GS Shop and Belt Road Capital Management of $7 million, bringing the company’s total financing to date to close to $12 million. The last series-A funding round of the company was $3 million and took place in January last year.

Following the flash-sales model that has proven successful in Europe (Vente-privee.com) and China (vip.com), Leflair offers a wide range of worldwide branded merchandise, from fashion and beauty to home, to Vietnamese consumers at attractive prices. Since its launch in December 2015, the company has grown on average more than 100 percent every year in gross merchandise value and is currently selling merchandise from more than 1,500 brands.

This funding round had the participation of two investors and also marks GS Shop’s first direct investment in Vietnam’s startup scene. “We are going to use this capital first to leverage the strategic partnership with GS as much as possible and increase our flow of merchandise from South Korea,” said Mr. Loic Gautier, Co-founder, and CEO of Leflair. “This means investing in hiring teams that will make this partnership a success and deploying resources in the areas of fulfillment, delivery, and technology.”

As demand for branded products continues to grow rapidly among Vietnamese consumers, Leflair will continue to invest in their cross-border operations and bring in more international brands, in particular from Asia’s largest shopping hubs to Vietnam.

“Since the launch of our international hubs in Singapore and Hong Kong last year, we have made hundreds of other brands accessible to Vietnamese consumers for the first time,” said Mr. Gautier. “International sales have been doubling every quarter. We believe cross-border is the future of e-commerce in Southeast Asia and with this additional funding our customers will soon be able to purchase even more brands from international hubs, in particular, South Korea and Japan while enjoying the same delivery experience as domestic deliveries.”

Growing its international operations is part of a bigger plan for Leflair to replicate its success in Vietnam in other Southeast Asian markets. “We started Leflair in Vietnam knowing that other markets with similar demographics are facing the same supply challenges,” he added. “2019 will be the year of our regional expansion as we progress towards our mission of making the world’s best brands accessible to more consumers in Southeast Asia.”

Leflair has closed a total of three rounds of investment from world-class angel investors and venture capital firms from the US, France, Italy, Singapore, Hong Kong and now from South Korea and Cambodia. The company was founded by Loic Gautier and Pierre-Antoine Brun, two French entrepreneurs currently living in Vietnam. Leflair is operating in Ho Chi Minh City and has offices and fulfillment centers in Vietnam, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

Source: Vietnam Economic Times

Belt Road seeks to promote local SMEs

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Alex Odom Chief Investment Officer of Belt Road Capital Management (BRCM) spoke to The Post’s Cheng Sokhorng and gave an overview of the current investment in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Cambodia as well as its purpose. BRCM recently acquired a 40 per cent stake in Cambodian digital publishing and entertainment group Sabay Digital Corporation, while earlier this year, it also invested with Realestate.com.kh.

When was Belt Road established? Where is the capital coming from?

The company was founded in the middle of last year. The primary business objective is to provide professional financial management services for those seeking investment opportunities in the Mekong Region. Our investors are high net-worth individuals in the Asia Pacific.

How does Belt Road cooperate or help to promote local SMEs?

Our first fund is targeted at SMEs. We partner with promising SMEs in the Mekong region, including Cambodia, to support the achievement of strategic goals, facilitate sustainable growth and expand access to new markets for these companies.

In Cambodia, BRCM first invested in Digital Classifieds Group, the online firm behind Cambodia’s leading real estate website Realestate.com.kh. The capital was used to further grow operations in Cambodia as well as expand business in other regional markets.

More recently, BRCM invested in one of Cambodia’s most renowned tech companies, Sabay Digital Corporation (Sabay). The investment was to further enhance internal game development through their gaming studio arm, Sabay Osja, as well as to bring in more international gaming titles to the Kingdom of Cambodia.

What kind of potential business are you focusing on and why?

We see a lot of value in tech-enabled and platform-based businesses for the moment. Our current investment portfolio obviously reflects that investment strategy. However, that being said, we are sector agnostic and have been looking at opportunities from healthcare to logistics and education.

Regarding the quality of potential investee companies, we look for those with strong leadership teams and two years or more of operating history. They should have viable and strong growth plans, typically operating in sectors with proven and tested business models.

How do you view the development of SMEs in Cambodia?

There has been an overall increase in the number of SMEs in the region, including Cambodia, which is a positive sign of economic development.

In Cambodia, we are seeing more SMEs seeking investment capital. Often these businesses are locally owned and managed. The companies range across a wide variety of sectors.

How much funding have you pumped into SMEs so far?

To date, we have deployed around $20 million in investment capital in the region, with deals ranging from $2 million to $7 million. Like the two Cambodia-based businesses that we have invested in – Sabay and Realesate.com.kh – we hope to see more investments of this type in Cambodia and are actively searching.

Do you have any other plans?

Next year, we plan to raise a second investment vehicle with a similar focus on private equity investments in the Mekong region. We are also exploring larger investment activities in the real estate and infrastructure sectors.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Source: Phnom Penh Post 

Belt Road Capital invests $3m in Vietnamese P2P lending startup Tima

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Mekong-focused venture capital firm Belt Road Capital Management (BRCM) has injected $3 million in a Series B funding round of Tima, a Vietnamese P2P lending platform incepted in 2015.

The latest investment values the company at $20 million. Tima raised a series A round in 2016 from Dunearn Singapore Fund and G Capital.

This is the first investment by the Cambodia-headquartered fund manager in Vietnam.
Proceeds from the Series B round will be used for national expansion, technology enhancement and talent acquisition, Tima said in a statement.

Under the agreements of the transaction, Witt Gatchell, senior investment manager of BRCM, will join Tima’s board of directors.

“While the sector is new to Vietnam, it is well developed in other markets. We believe that Tima’s strong management team has implemented the necessary internal and financial controls that will allow the company to successfully manage risk and expand across Vietnam,” Gatchell commented.

“We received higher demand from top financial investors and strategic investors in this round. We may have a pre-series C funding round right after this Series B, our Board is considering this proposal from several big funds and open to investors who can add value to the company for our growth and expansion,” Tima co-founder and Board member Cong Tran said.

The company says it has 23,775 lenders and over 2 million borrowers on its platform. In order to soothe the concern over P2P lending risks, Tima has partnered with Vietnam’s second largest bank’s insurance arm Vietinbank Insurance Corporation to secure the transactions.

While marking its foray in Vietnam, BRCM has funded a spate of companies in the sub-Mekong region, including recent deals in mobility solution startup Unnitel and Sabay Digital.

“We are seeing strong growth in tech-enabled businesses across the Mekong region. Many business models that have proven successful in larger markets have yet to be implemented in the region. We believe that strong, locally driven teams can be successful at taking proven tech-enabled business model and localizing them,” said Gatchell.

BRCM’s debut fund has a corpus of $50 million and has a pipeline to invest in 10 companies, the firm told DEALSTREETASIA in an earlier interaction. Its typical investment preference is in the Series A or Series B round with minority stake holding.

Source: Deal Street Asia 

BRCM’s latest investment to bolster local gaming industry

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Cambodia-based private equity firm Belt Road Capital Management (BRCM) announced the acquisition of a 40 percent stake in locally-owned Sabay Digital Corporation (Sabay).

The investment will strengthen Sabay’s capacity to develop innovative and profitable video games for the Cambodian market, according to the press release, which added that BRCM is aiming to build an e-sports ecosystem in the country.

Sabay is one of Cambodia’s most renowned tech companies. Through the gaming studio Sabay Osja, it publishes desktop and mobile games for the Cambodian market.

The capital will be used to bring in more international gaming titles to the Kingdom, the company said.

Chy Sila, Sabay’s CEO, said the new funds will help his company develop more products to serve and entertain people.

“We are excited to cooperate with BRCM as a strategic partner to help accelerate our current projects and to strengthen market entry in unexplored business areas,” said Mr Sila.

Alex Odom, Chief Investment Officer at BRCM, said with their latest investment they are contributing to the development of the country’s gaming industry.

“With Sabay’s dominant position in the gaming industry in Cambodia and the management team’s expertise in publishing and distributing content, we are confident in the Company’s future growth in the gaming market,” he said.

BRCM is a private equity investment manager based in Phnom Penh that focuses on the Greater Mekong Sub-Region.

In January 2018, BRCM partnered with and invested $1.8 million into Digital Classifieds Group (DCG), the parent company behind Realestate.com.kh, Cambodia’s leading property portal and marketing agency.

Source: Khmer Times