Loship, a Vietnamese on-demand ecommerce platform, has announced that it has raised $12M in pre-Series C financing. This brings its valuation to $100 Million. BAce Capital, a venture fund backed by Ant Group, led the round, along with Sun Hung Kai & Co Limited's direct investment unit.Loship was founded in 2017 and offers one-hour delivery for a wide range of products and services including food, ride-hailing and medicine. According to the company, it employs more than 70,000 drivers, 200,000 merchants and serves approximately 2 million customers in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.This round brings the total amount of Loships raised to $20 millions. The previous funding was a bridge round by MetaPlanet Holdings. It was announced in February 2021. Loship is currently in the process to raise a Series C. It is expected that the Series C will close by the end this year.Trung Hoang Nguyen, co-founder and chief executive officer of Loship, told TechCrunch Loship raised a preSeries C round due to the large number of investors involved in our Series B round. Loship therefore decided to split the round between a preSeries C or Series C.MetaPlanet Holdings participated in the pre-Series C round. Wealth Well, Prism Ventures, and SQ Capital Group (SCCG Ventures Asia) also participated. Former Starbucks Vice President Mojtaba Ahkbari, FNZ Group APAC chief Executive Officer Tim Neville; BNP Paribas Global Macro Sales Director Ben Fitzpatrick; DASS-Inc founder & CEO Wayne Cowden; EC1 managing Partners Simon Eglise; Ilwella Pty Ltd Director Quentin Flannery and Jonathan Feil; and iVS CEO Milan reinartzLoships will use the new funding to expand into new areas and grow verticals such as B2B deliveries for small food, beverage and retail businesses. The round will also see Benny Chen (BAce Capital founder), join Loships' board of directors. Benny Chen was previously the managing director at Ant Group India where he invested heavily in Paytm, Zomato and Zomato.Trung Hoang Nguyen, co-founder and CEO of Loship, said that the company has a clear path to profitability. Originally Loship was an online review platform. However, people started using it to sell and buy items via chats.People used Lozi the same way that eBay back then. They could list their products and buy from others. TechCrunch was told by Nguyen that we could not know if the Lozi transaction was successful, particularly if it was only online chat. Controlling the delivery is the best way to find out the exact status.Loship was launched by the company in late 2017 and began with food delivery, before expanding to other verticals. Nguyen said that the platform covers anything that can be legally transported on a motorcycle.Nguyen stated that Loship's verticals help it differentiate from larger players such as Grab and Gojek. Nguyen said that Loship's advantage is also its homegrown startup.We are the only local player and have a better understanding of our customers than other regional players. We are locals, and we know our winning strategy. We strategically go into untapped markets, such as lower-tier cities. Then we grow our customer base and move forward.Loships plans to expand in five more major cities by 2021, increasing its total number to 10. It will then launch in Tier 2/3 cities in Vietnam before expanding in Southeast Asia. Nguyen calls Laos, Cambodia and Cambodia must-win markets.Chen stated that Loship is a strong ecosystem that adds value to small businesses, customers, and riders in a statement regarding the funding. We saw the company grow during the pandemic thanks to Trung's leadership and entrepreneurship. The company was able to offer new product and service innovations to its users and merchants.
