Ula, an Indonesian B2B e-commerce site, has raised $87 million in a Series B investment headed by Prosus Ventures, Tencent, and B Capital.
Bezos Expeditions, the investment company founded by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Northstar Group, AC Ventures, and Citius have also joined.
Existing investors Lightspeed India, Sequoia India, Quona Capital, and Alter Global joined the investment, which comes eight months after the company’s US $20 million Series A round in January 2021.
The funds will be used to expand the company’s footprint in Indonesia and to look at worldwide development in Southeast Asia. Ula will also extend its buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) service, as well as develop new technologies and a local supply chain and logistical infrastructure.
Ula has also hired seasoned investor and entrepreneur Pandu Sjahrir as an advisor as part of the new round.
Nipun Mehra, Alan Wong, Derry Sakti, and Riky Tenggara — a team of seasoned e-commerce and FMCG experts from Indonesia, India, and the United States with decades of experience spanning Amazon, Flipkart, Lazada, P&G, and Booking.com — established Ula in January 2020.
It’s a multi-category horizontal wholesale e-commerce marketplace that blends contemporary retail’s technology, tools, and talents with traditional micro-lean retail’s cost structure. According to Ula, this provides small business owners with the finest variety, pricing, and working capital, allowing them to enhance their overall revenue.
Ula claims to have expanded 230 times since its debut, now selling over 6,000 goods and supporting over 70,000 conventional retail establishments on its platform.
A BNPL option is also available, which is anticipated to be a US $150 billion market in Indonesia.
Ula previously received a seed round of $10.5 million 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.
