SCI Ecommerce, sponsored by two of Alibaba’s newest partners, has gathered over $38 million USD to fortify its presence in Southeast Asia pending a potential listing by Nasdaq.
The internet shopping service provider received strong support from Asia Partners which valued it an impressive $235 million, according to info leaked to Yahoo Finance by an insider.
SCI’s primary role is to assist brands establish and run their web stores in China and Southeast Asia, much like Shopify does for Canadian merchants.
Ready to go with a well-thought-out growth strategy in Southeast Asia, SCE Ecommerce is eyeing a major listing in New York come end-year with a target market value of $1 billion, CEO Joseph Liu told Yahoo.
Having obtained consent to list in Singapore, the 7-year old firm will consider a secondary listing in City’s stock exchange.
Liu created SCI (an acronym for Singapore, China & Indonesia) in 2014 to serve the three markets. Now, he plans to spend the new capital to extend its presence to Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines.
This move will create no less than 100 job spots across China and Southeast Asia, in the coming twelve months to fortify its 200-employee workforce.
Primary shareholders include Jubilee Capital, Pang Shengdong (China), and two of Alibaba Group’s creators, Eddie Wu and James Sheng.
According to Liu, the online shopping service provider’s net revenue income grew more than twofold from 2019 to almost S$150 million last year.
SCI Ecommerce’s operating profit jumped to S$1.9 million from S$183,000 in 2019 over the same duration.
Brands like Nestle, Crayola, Unilever, Crayola, and Danone use the service to establish and run their web stores in China and Southeast Asia.
“We look forward to becoming the No. 1 online retail solution provider in Southeast Asia,” says Liu. “SCI’s vision is to create a combined Shopify and Baozun for the Asia Pacific market.”
Final Words
As online retail dominates the ecommerce front, merchants worldwide need solutions like SCI to set up shops. The startup’s expansion to Southeast Asia will see many would-be merchants establish and grow their businesses.
Author Bio: Payment industry guru Taylor Cole is a passionate payments expert at BPP, renowned merchant account providers for high and low-risk businesses. He also writes non-fiction on subjects ranging from personal finance to stocks to Cryptopay. He enjoys eating pie with ice cream on his backyard porch, as should all right-thinking people.
