Ox Street acquired by Singapore-based Carousell to double down efforts in Greater SEA
Carousell Group, a major classifieds company located in Singapore, has purchased Ox Street, a Southeast Asian online marketplace for verified sneakers and streetwear, for an unknown price.
This comes only weeks after Carousell obtained a $100 million financing round led by STIC Investments, a Korean private equity firm.
This purchase will help the company expand its re-commerce business in Greater Southeast Asia. Ox Street, located in Singapore, will keep its name, platform, and employees after the acquisition.
Carousell also wants to expand Ox Street’s reach and size so that it may become the market leader in fashion and luxury products. It would also enable both markets to benefit from the Greater Southeast Asian market’s expansion in shoes and other new categories, which is being driven by Gen Z tendencies.
Ox Street, which launched in November 2019, wants to make purchasing and selling used products “as smooth as a premium e-commerce experience.” Before sending a pair of sneakers to a customer, it inspects and authenticates it.
Ox Street focuses on Southeast Asia’s 85 million Gen Z and Y customers, who will spend $128 billion on fashion in 2025. In Southeast Asia, the shoe brand has five locations.
Carousell claims to have innovative and intuitive technology, a broad reach, and marketplace liquidity in a variety of categories. These features, when paired with Ox Street’s authentication capabilities, will help the two companies achieve their shared objective of making buying secondhand as easy and secure as buying new.
“We see immense opportunity in bringing that capability and their learnings to double down on our re-commerce efforts. Most of all, we see this acquisition as joining forces to accelerate our shared vision of making second-hand the first choice,” said Quek Siu Rui, co-founder and CEO of Carousell.
“Our focus markets align nearly 1 to 1, and in these markets, Carousell was the first and remains the largest marketplace for sneakers and streetwear. With Carousell’s reach and technological capabilities, we can supercharge Ox Street’s ability to innovate and reach more buyers and sellers,” said Gijs Verheijke, the Founder and CEO of Ox Street.
Carousell launched in Singapore in August 2012 and now operates in eight Asian cities. The company has over 250 million listings across Southeast Asia, Taiwan, and Hong Kong as of September last year.
The marketplace offers a wide variety of items in a variety of categories, including automobiles, lifestyle, electronics, and fashion accessories. Cho Tot (Vietnam), Mudah (Malaysia), OneKyat (Myanmar), and Revo Financial are among the companies it owns and runs (Singapore).
Carousell has raised approximately US $260 million in many stages since its inception. They included US$80 million in September 2020 from a group of firms and US$56 million in April 2019 from OLX. Telenor Group, Rakuten Ventures, Sequoia India, and Naspers are among Carousell’s other investors.
In 2019, it acquired 701Search, a classifieds business owned by Norwegian telecom Telenor Group, and OLX Philippines to strengthen its position in Malaysia, Vietnam, and the Philippines.
