Mio, a Vietnam-based social commerce startup, has raised US$8 million in a series A funding round led by Jungle Ventures. Patamar Capital, angel investor Oliver Jung, and existing investors such as Golden Gate Ventures, Venturra Discovery, Hustle Fund, iSeed SEA, and DoorDash executive Gokul Rajaram also participated in the round.
The investment boosts Mio’s total funding raised to US$9.1 million.
Founded in June 2020, Mio uses a network of resellers to sell fresh produce such as fruit, vegetables, and meat. The company was set up by former IDG Ventures associate Trung Huynh, Scommerce co-founder An Pham, ex-DigiPay executive Tu Le, and former Uber Vietnam operations lead Long Pham.
Around a year after its inception, when the company raised a US$1 million seed round, it had 150 active resellers. Today, that number has grown by 10x to 1,500. Mio’s gross merchandise value (GMV) has also increased by more than 50x in the last 12 months.
Huynh credits the company’s growth to its referral programs, which offer a fee to resellers who can onboard other people to the platform. Existing resellers also get additional bonuses if the individual they refer performs well. In a statement, Mio said that each reseller can earn up to US$400 from these referral bonuses as well as from the 10% commission they get for every order they facilitate.
“We spend very little in marketing. We don’t use digital marketing or billboards – we focus on the referral,” Huynh told Tech in Asia.
Mio has around 240 employees, an increase of 5x since May last year. Around 50% of its headcount consists of its operational taskforce who work in the company’s warehouses and fulfillment centers.
Mio plans to use the fresh funding to put up more fulfillment centers and tap into new cities in Vietnam. It currently covers Ho Chi Minh and its satellite cities, such as Binh Duong, Dong Nai, and Long An, which are located in the southern region of the country. This year, it plans to enter the northern region, where the country’s capital city of Hanoi is located.
“Hanoi has similarities with Ho Chi Minh, and it also has several satellite cities. We aim to be present in 10 cities by the end of 2022,” Huynh noted.
The company also wants to improve its logistics and supply chain, which Huynh said is important for Mio in the long run. That’s why the company prefers to control fulfillment centers and the delivery process itself. Today, its delivery courier can handle almost 80% of the company’s total transactions.
“During the time when the order is spiked, or there is a special event, we cooperate with third-party logistics,” Huynh said.
The company currently sells more than 10,000 products every day, and it targets to fulfill 100,000 orders per day by the end of 2022.
Huynh revealed that he sees interest from businesses in the hotel, restaurant, and cafe sector that want to source fresh produce from his company in bulk due to the attractive prices. With the pressure to increase GMVs after raising a significant amount of funding, Huynh finds the offers tempting.
However, he consistently rejects such requests to keep the company focused on using its reseller network and reaching customers nationwide.
Mio has expanded its offerings to FMCG products due to requests from its customers. However, these offerings only occupy around 10% of Mio’s total stock keeping units. Huynh explained that while FMCG products are easier for fulfillment – as they typically have a longer shelf life than other categories – they bring lower margins.
“Majority of our GMV still comes from fresh produce, so it will still be our focus,” Huynh added.