Singapore-based online grocery store RedMart has closed its Series A round of funding, the company announced today, bringing its total amount of funding to $4.6 million so far.
Singapore-based Garena, an Internet company that offers chat services and games, funded RedMart’s Series A round. Immediately prior to it, RedMart said it raised its third convertible round at roughly the same valuation as the Series A funding.
According to Angel List, RedMart has raised just shy of $1.2 million before today’s announcement — indicating that it has raised around $3.4 million in this short span of time.
The startup, which currently sells non-perishable goods, delivers directly to customers with no charge for purchases above the SG$75 (US$59.50) mark.
Forrest Li, founder and CEO of Garena, said that RedMart’s results over the two years plus since its launch show that “they are building a truly customer-centric business.”
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“They have been incredibly capital efficient in building the foundation for what I believe will become Singaporeans’ regular choice for buying everyday essentials,” Forrest said.
RedMart’s c0-founder and CEO Roger Egan told TNW that its run rate stands at $5 million. The company has grown 70 percent quarter-on-quarter and Egan says they have very high customer retention rate — with 75 percent who order once ordering again — and their customers order on average 1.5 times a month.
Instead of expats, the majority of RedMart’s customers are Singaporeans, making up about 65 percent now — which shows there is a strong demand locally, Egan says. The number of registered users stands at 11,000 currently.
Egan also says that RedMart is planning to expand to other cities in the region in 2014, tipping Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong, after the company has finished fine-tuning its infrastructure here in Singapore — mainly to do with logistics in delivery. He notes, however, that Singapore’s grocery market is worth about $5.2 billion, so “there is plenty of room for growth right here.”
The company will be raising a larger round of financing near the end of 2013 to continue fueling its growth.
RedMart’s third convertible round of funding came from entrepreneurs including Steve Melhuish and Jani Rautiainen, the co-founders of property site PropertyGuru, and Cathy Yeap, the founder of food-and-beverage operation Cedele in Singapore and former managing director of Watsons Personal Care. Investors included East Ventures — which pumped in the money back in March, Orientation Capital, DSG Consumer Partners and DHG Communications Network.
Late last year, Golden Gate Ventures made an undisclosed investment in a trio of e-commerce startups in the region, one of them RedMart.
Headline image via Thinkstock
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