LAZADA secures $100 million of funding and launches a new mobile shopping platform

Make way, folks! Online shopping giant LAZADA (operating here in the Philippines as lazada.com.ph) is coming in hot and in blazing speeds. On the heels of a round of funding from Kinnevik in November last year and Tengelmann in January this year comes yet another vote of confidence from no less than Verlinvest, a Belgian family-owned, consumer-focused investment holding company. This brings up investments in Lazada to $100 million.

Lazada Secures $100 million in funding and launches Android app

For a customer like myself, you can’t get any more confident than that!

Lazada just celebrated its 1st year anniversary last April and in such a short time, the company has grown by leaps and bounds. It’s not surprising that investors will eventually flock to pour their money on such a promising business.

I’ve witnessed how Lazada grew from an online retail company that frustrated many customers because of delivery issues/delays to one that’s been immensely praised for speed and quality of service and even in their choice of product line-up. Hopefully, things would get even better from hereon because great businesses are all about happy, satisfied and delighted customers.

Oh, and before I forget, for those of you who own Android devices (smartphones, tablets, phablets), be sure to download LAZADA’s new Android app, it’s available for FREE on the Google Play Store and even gives you PHP500 off of your total purchase made from within the app itself (until June 30, 2013 only so hurry and get it). Download the app here. Watch my video review of the Lazada Android app here (I’ve already used the app and bought from it. It works flawlessly.)

For the rest of us iOS users, don’t worry, an iOS app is coming very soon.

SEE FULL PRESS RELEASE BELOW:

LAZADA secures $100 million of funding and launches a new mobile shopping platform

LAZADA, Southeast Asia’s largest online shopping mall, today disclosed that Verlinvest, a Belgian family-owned, consumer-focused investment holding company, has joined the company as an investor. Existing investors Holtzbrinck Ventures, Kinnevik, Summit Partners and Tengelmann Group also participated in the financing round that injected about $100 million of fresh capital into LAZADA’s German holding company.

“We are extremely happy to have finalized this investment round shortly after our 1st year anniversary and to again focus 100% of our attention on what we enjoy most: providing an amazing shopping experience to our customers” Maximilian Bittner, CEO of LAZADA, commented. “The interest in joining this round and its quick closing has exceeded all our expectations” he added. “We are thrilled to join LAZADA as a partner of Rocket Internet and an investor, the company’s scale and achievements after only one year of operations are highly impressive. Given the management’s track record and the region’s macro outlook we are very confident in LAZADA’s future” Frédéric de Mevius, Chairman of Verlinvest, said.

LAZADA, which recently surpassed 1 million orders, has always maintained the customer experience as its main point of focus and invests heavily to provide superior services to its customers. This focus has resulted in a highly streamlined fulfilment process where currently 90% of all orders are shipped the same day and 85% of orders in metro areas are delivered within the next day. However, to further improve delivery time and increase customer satisfaction the company will use a large part of the freshly injected capital to optimize its fulfilment infrastructure in the near future.

At the same time LAZADA announced the launch of its new mobile application that provides its customers with a fast and intuitive shopping experience using a smartphone. The application is currently available for Android users and an iPhone version is soon to come. “We are very excited to launch this mobile shopping platform that provides additional convenience to our customers allowing them to shop anywhere at any time” said LAZADA’s CMO Stein Jakob Oeie. “Mobile commerce is representing more than 10% of eCommerce in the US and we expect this to develop even faster in Southeast Asia where many users only have access to the Internet through smartphones” he continued.

About LAZADA
LAZADA (www.lazada.co.id, http://www.lazada.com.my, http://www.lazada.com.ph, http://www.lazada.co.th, http://www.lazada.vn) is Southeast Asia’s fastest growing online shopping mall, with operations in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. LAZADA is pioneering eCommerce across some of the fastest growing countries in the world by offering a fast, secure and convenient online shopping experience with a broad product offering in categories ranging from consumer electronics to household goods, toys and sports equipment. LAZADA is always striving to offer its customers the best possible offering – including multiple payment options, free returns and extensive customer service and warranty commitments.

About Verlinvest
Verlinvest (www.verlinvest.com) is a Belgian family-owned, consumer-focused investment holding company. The company is an active and flexible long-term investor, and all its shareholders are part of the AB-InBev control group. Founded in 1995, Verlinvest currently manages around €700m of assets across multiple geographies.
About Holtzbrinck Ventures
Holtzbrinck Ventures (www.holtzbrinck-ventures.com) was founded in 2000 as the venture capital arm of the Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group and now operates as the leading German early stage fund in the fourth generation of funds. For over a decade Holtzbrinck Ventures has been supporting founders in developing their Internet businesses. During this time, Holtzbrinck Ventures has invested in over 100 businesses, among them some of today’s most successful businesses, such as Groupon, Zalando, Parship, brands4friends, Experteer, StudiVZ, MyHammer, AdScale, Wooga, eDarling and Gameduell.
About Kinnevik
Kinnevik (www.kinnevik.se) was founded in 1936 and thus embodies seventy-five years of entrepreneurship under the same group of principal owners. Kinnevik’s objective is to increase shareholder value, primarily through net asset value growth. The company’s holdings of growth companies are focused around seven comprehensive business sectors; Telecom & Services, Online, Media, Micro financing, Paper & Packaging, Agriculture and Renewable energy. Kinnevik has a long history of investing in emerging markets which has resulted in a considerable exposure to consumer sectors in these markets. Kinnevik plays an active role on the Boards of its holdings.
The Kinnevik’s class A and class B shares are listed on the NASDAQ OMX Stockholm’s list for large cap companies, within the financial and real estate sector. The ticker codes are KINV A and KINV B.
About Summit Partners
Summit Partners (www.summitpartners.com) is a growth equity firm that invests in rapidly growing companies. Founded in 1984, Summit has raised nearly $15 billion in capital and provides equity and credit for growth, recapitalizations, and management buyouts. Summit has invested in more than 350 companies globally in the technology, healthcare and other growth industries. These companies have completed more than 125 public offerings, and in excess of 130 have been acquired through strategic mergers and sales. Summit Partners has offices in Boston, Palo Alto, London and Mumbai.

In the United States of America, Summit Partners operates as an SEC-registered investment advisor. In the United Kingdom, this document is issued by Summit Partners Limited, a firm authorized and regulated by the Financial Services Authority. Summit Partners Limited is a limited company registered in England and Wales with company number 4141197, and its registered office is at 20–22 Bedford Row, London, WC1R 4JS, UK. This document is intended solely to provide information regarding Summit Partners’ potential financing capabilities for prospective portfolio companies.
About Tengelmann Group
Tengelmann Group (www.tengelmann.de) is an international operating retail company whose business interests are spread across a number of different industries. Subsidiaries include OBI, KiK, Kaiser’s Tengelmann, baby-markt.de and Plus Online. TREI Real Estate, as well as the holding company Tengelmann Ventures, which has been investing in promising online start-ups for several years, are also part of the corporate group. The family-owned business was established in 1867 in Mülheim an der Ruhr and is currently managed in fifth generation. Tengelmann Group is operating over 4,000 stores in 15 different countries and employing more than 80,000 people. The group’s annual turnover is totalling EUR 10bn.
For all media enquiries:
press@lazada.com
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