Zilingo hopes to get $50 million more fund

Southeast Asian fashion startup Zilingo is set to raise a further US$50 million as it strengthens its operations in Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand and beyond.

Zilingo was founded in October 2015 by Dhruv Kapoor and Ankiti Bose, who were inspired by the clothing stalls in labyrinthine markets they saw while backpacking across Indonesia and Thailand. Their idea was to connect a fragmented landscape of fashion supply for buyers across Asia.

Now the company aggregates small fashion retailers in the three Southeast Asian markets on a single platform. With more than 10,000 merchants now on board, the site has evolved into a service attractive to both B2B and B2C customers.

Users can upload and manage their inventory in any language, using any currency, connecting them through 25 interfaces with logistics, warehousing and payment providers, as well as services like loans, cataloguing and insurance.

“Nowhere in the world has a horizontal e-commerce company also cracked fashion,” says Bose. “It’s a unique, high-margin category that is highly dependent on fast-moving cycles and has its own nuances. Unlike buying detergent or electronics, fashion is much more about your choice, individuality and trends. It requires a different approach than the rest of e-commerce.”

Besides selling in Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand, Zilingo ships to four further countries and has supply bases in Bangladesh, Cambodia, China and Vietnam.

The latest fundraising follows a $54 million round in March.