The Eezee team
(This article has been updated with more details about the trends in the industry and the impact of COVID-19 on Eezee)
Eezee, a Singapore-based online B2B marketplace for industrial hardware and supplies, has received an undisclosed amount in pre-Series A round led by Wavemaker Partners.
Other investors in the round include January Capital, the Pags Group, the family office of Bain Capital’s Stephen Pagliuca, and existing investor Insignia Ventures.
Along with this equity round, Eezee also secured an undisclosed debt facility from Polaris, the strategic partnerships arm of Goldbell Financial Services.
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Co-founder and CEO Logan Tan told e27 that Eezee will use the fresh capital to double down the business development effort to get wider market adoption especially within Singapore.
“We’re also looking for our first business development hire on the ground within Philippines and Indonesia,” he added.
Established in 2017 by Logan Tan, Terence Goh, and Jasper Yap, Eezee enables businesses to make small value purchases on industrial supplies such as safety gloves and helmets without the hassle of bureaucratic procurement processes and paperwork.
For buyers, Eezee acts as an online marketplace that consolidates a range of brands and products, so they can compare the prices of goods and suppliers. Its catalogue includes safety shoes, safety glasses, safety goggles, safety harness, personal protective equipment, power tools and hardware.
As for sellers, the platform helps them to manage sales orders and categorise their stock, as well as source other items from other suppliers when requested to by their customers.
“Our platform elevates business processes by integrating with ERPs such as SAP Ariba, Oracle and Coupa, thus enabling businesses remain compliant with governance objectives in an accelerated manner. In 2020, our partnership with Shell to digitalise procurement delivered 20per cent cost savings from integration, thus drastically reducing man hours while offering a wide range of competitively priced products on their marketplace,” he said in a press statement.
Logan said that the firm also delivers products outside of Singapore. “Some of our top countries are Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia. We have some business dealings regionally (majority of our exports goes to regional with the top three countries dominating 60 per cent of our exports). We also ship our products beyond regional but currently very fragmented.”
The startup recently partnered with the Singapore government to enable its 150,000 civil servants to procure items directly from the platform.
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Eezee’s Chief Commercial Officer Shawn Seet shared: “Eezee is not just a marketplace — we’re an ecosystem. International business buyers use us as we provide an unparalleled procurement experience. Suppliers partner with us as they renew their lifespan by integrating with us to reach customers they could never serve. The potential of this connectivity is limitless.”
Over the past four years, Eezee has developed an effective template for driving digitalisation of the procurement process that they aim to bring to the rest of the region.
In September 2019, Eezee had bagged an undisclosed sum in seed funding from Insignia Ventures for business expansion.
Impact of COVID-19
According to Logan, COVID-19 has had a positive impact on the business. When the pandemic first hit, Eezee’s order volume jumped due to the rise of demand for PPE (personal protective equipment) kits and masks, etc.
“We then started to see significant interest from our clients to utilise the platform and they are more receptive to digital solutions. The panic purchases and spike in volume eventually fades away with more stable growth MoM. Overall, there’s positive impact on our business,” he remarked.
Trends
Logan is seeing a seeing a shift in behaviours towards B2B digital commerce, not just for industrial supplies but across various categories such as F&B, FMCG and many more.
“Although the shift is still in a very early phase, there’s positive signs that we have secured major clients that are very supportive of our journey. The world gets more and more connected, businesses will follow suit as well,” he said.
“My personal belief is that as the consumer world gets digitalised, businesses will follow suit. Due to the ever-growing digital gaps between the consumer and business world, it’s inevitable that the digital technology will gain a significant footing into the business world,” he concluded.
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Image Credit: Eezee
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