(L-R) Ula co-founders Riky Tenggara, Derry Sakti, and Alan Wong
Ula, a B2B e-commerce marketplace in Indonesia, has secured US$87 million in a Series B financing round co-led by Prosus Ventures, Tencent and B Capital.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s investment firm Bezos Expeditions, Northstar group, AC Ventures, and Citius also joined.
Existing backers Lightspeed India, Sequoia India, Quona Capital, and Alter Global also participated in the round, which comes eight months after its US$20 million Series A round in January 2021.
The company will use the latest capital to grow its presence across Indonesia and exploring international expansion across Southeast Asia. Besides, Ula will add new categories, expand its buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) offering, and build new technology and a local supply chain and logistics infrastructure.
As part of the new round, Ula has also brought in seasoned investor and entrepreneur Pandu Sjahrir as an advisor.
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Ula was founded in January 2020 by Nipun Mehra, Alan Wong, Derry Sakti, and Riky Tenggara — a team of experienced e-commerce and FMCG professionals from Indonesia, India and the US with decades of experience spanning Amazon, Flipkart, Lazada, P&G and Booking.com.
It is a horizontal multi-category wholesale e-commerce marketplace that combines modern retail’s technology, tools and skills with the lean cost structure of traditional micro-retail. According to Ula, this brings the best in selection, prices and working capital to small store owners to increase their overall income.
Since the launch, Ula claims to have grown 230x, currently offering over 6,000 products and serving more than 70,000 traditional retail stores on its platform.
The firm also offers a BNPL option, which is expected to be a US$150 billion market in Indonesia.
Previously, Ula bagged a US$10.5 million seed round in June 2020.
“We launched in 2020, with a single-minded mission to empower small, neighbourhood retailers with technology to increase their income. We take a long-term approach to solve the underlying problems of traditional retailers by investing in technology, supply chain and data-enabled credit offering,” said Nipun Mehra, CEO and co-founder at Ula.
“With Ula, traditional retailers no longer have to worry about sourcing, product availability, or even payments, which frees up their time to focus on other important things. Seeing the impact that we’re able to have in the lives of our customers is what drives our team,” said Derry Sakti, co-founder and chief commercial officer at Ula.
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Image Credit: Ula
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