Sendo, one of Vietnam’s leading C2C and B2C e-commerce platforms, has announced that it secured an investment of USD 61 million in Series C financing—the company’s largest funding round to date. Sendo had previously raised USD 51 million in Series B capital in August 2018.
This is also one of the largest deals for Vietnam’s tech scenes this year, with VNPAY and logistics firm Scommerce bagging record amounts earlier this year.
Sendo’s existing investors—including SBI Group, Beenos, SoftBank Ventures Asia, Daiwa PI Partners, and Digital Garage—expressed strong support via the investment. Additionally, EV Growth from Indonesia and Kasikornbank from Thailand joined the roster as new investors.
Hai Linh Tran, CEO and co-founder of Sendo, said that the funds will be used to expand the breadth of its existing offerings to both sellers and consumers, as well as further deepen its technology moat with artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve the overall consumer experience. Linh said in a press statement the Sendo has hit the annualized GMV target of USD 1 billion earlier than expected, but is looking for “meaningful and sustainable GMV growth.”
“Sendo’s integrated ecosystem spanning marketplace, advertising, logistics, and financial services is designed to ensure that, and that goes well with our monetization strategy into multiple revenue streams and ultimately, our path to profitability,” Linh said.
In an interview with KrASIA in September, Linh said that Sendo has never been among the top two or three companies in terms of its cash-burning rate. In the third quarter of this year, Sendo has been neck-to-neck with regional player Shopee in terms of web traffic in Vietnam, according to market research company iPrice.
Daniel Kang, senior partner and managing director of Softbank Ventures Asia, said that being a homegrown company gives Sendo a deep understanding of the local market and real consumer preferences.
Founded in 2012 as part of Vietnam’s largest IT services company, FPT Corporation, with a spin-off completed in 2014. Sendo has become one of the leading players in the country’s burgeoning e-commerce sector.
The company differentiates itself by focusing on locations beyond Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, wooing consumers in the largely untapped tier-2 cities, which are home to 70 million people.
Sendo currently caters to more than 500,000 sellers, with an estimated 17 million SKUs listed on its platform. It claims to serve more than 12 million customers across all 63 provinces in Vietnam.
