E-commerce site Sendo raises $61 million

By Viet Hung - Nov 25, 2019 | 08:55 AM GMT+7

TheLEADERThe investment represents Sendo’s largest funding round to date

E-commerce site Sendo raises $61 million
Sendo now is Vietnam’s second-most visited online market place

Vietnam’s online marketplace Sendo.vn has secured $61 million in a series C financing, marking its largest raise to date.

The round was joined by existing shareholders as SBI Group, Beenos, SoftBank Ventures Asia, Daiwa PI Partners, and Digital Garage along with new investors namely EV Growth and Thailand’s Kasikornbank, according to its annoucement.

Prior to this round, Sendo got $51 million in a series B funding round backed by Japanese financial services company SBI Group in August 2018.

The investors said that Sendo.vn’s attractiveness comes from its ability to achieve gross merchandise value (GMV) target of $1 billion earlier than expected.

The fresh funds will be used to expand its platform and to invest more in technology as AI or machine learning, said Tran Hai Linh, CEO and co-founder of Sendo. He stated that while the company achieved target earlier than expected, it remains focused on sustainable growth which is belived to come from consumer stickiness.

Founded in 2012 as part of FPT Corporation, Vietnam’s largest IT service company in Vietnam, Sendo focuses on the largely untapped two cities in Vietnam where is home to 70 million people.

It announced that it caters to 500,000 seller and estimated that there are 17 million distinct items listed on platform as well as 12 million buyers.

In the third quarter of 2019, Sendo surpassed local competitor Tiki to rank second among top ten e-commerce sites in Vietnam having highest monthly traffic numbers, according to Malaysia-based market research firm iPrice's.

Along with Tiki, Southeast Asian ecommerce majors as Lazada and Shopee also both have presence in Vietnam.