Singapore-based e-commerce startup Una Brands has raised a US$40 million ($53.42 milion) seed round to buy and scale e-commerce brands based in Asia Pacific.
The funding round is backed by 500 Startups, Kingsway Capital, 468 Capital, Presight Capital, Global Founders Capital, among others. Una Brands has also secured investment and backing from Maximilian Bittner, CEO of Vestiaire Collective and former CEO of Lazada.
Una Brands was founded in 2020 by Kiren Tanna, the former CEO of Rocket Internet Asia and founder of foodpanda and ZEN Rooms.
The company has four other co-founders: Adrian Johnston, Kushal Patel, Tobias Heusch and Srinivasan Shridharan. The founding team’s experience spans e-commerce, operations, data analytics, private equity and investment banking.
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Una Brands will focus on acquiring companies with strong independent branding that have annual revenue between US$300,000 and US$20 million.
According to a press release on May 6, the company is platform agnostic, acquiring businesses across leading e-commerce platforms including Amazon, Lazada, Shopee and Shopify. The company claims to be able to complete the end-to-end transaction process in under five weeks.
Tanna sees enormous potential for growth in the region. “We estimate that there are more than 10 million third-party sellers on regional platforms across Asia Pacific... The Covid-19 lockdowns encouraged many people to try shopping online for the first time and has created a behavioural shift in consumer habits.”
Khailee Ng, managing partner at 500 Startups, believes Una Brand can be a global leader in e-commerce. “They are experienced, mature co-founders with a track record in creating speed, scale and success. Kiren and his team have the right approach, there is a huge and growing e-commerce market in Asia Pacific and there is a huge opportunity for consolidation and optimisation.”
