Sen Do Technology JSC (Sendo), a leading e-commerce platform in Vietnam, has announced that it has secured an investment of US$51 million from SoftBank Ventures Korea, Daiwa PI Partners, and SKS Ventures as new investors in Series B round.
A visual from Sendo's website.
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The funding would help the company to expand the C2C platform Sendo, launch the B2C marketplace SenMall, and make SenPay the leading fintech platform in Vietnam, said Nguyen Dac Viet Dung, executive chairman and co-founder of Sendo, said in a statement.
He stressed the firm’s ultimate goal is to continue to support hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese sellers to prosper, and along the way help creating millions of jobs for the Vietnamese people. Having achieved the annualized gross merchandise value (GMV) of US$330 million, the company is on track to surpass US$1 billion of GMV in 2020.
“Vietnam is at its inflection point, bolstered by rapid GDP growth, young population and willingness to adopt technology. Against this backdrop, Vietnam’s e-commerce has strong growth potential and we believe Sendo’s marketplace model will benefit from the environments the most,” stated Daniel Kang, partner and managing director of SoftBank Ventures Korea.
Sendo has not only focused on Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City but also the untapped Tier 2 cities population, where 70 million Vietnamese people live. Sendo currently serves more than 300,000 sellers and millions of buyers in all 63 provinces in Vietnam. The company also provides SenPay, a mobile wallet service and fintech solution on Sendo platform as well as the off-line world.
Launched in March 2012, Sendo is a C2C marketplace in Vietnam, offering more than 10 million of products on its platform. This is also the first e-commerce marketplace combined with logistics providers and banks to provide customers with a full package of guaranteed transaction. In 2016, Sendo’s fintech subsidiary FPT Wallet, which operates Senpay, received e-payment licensed from the State Bank of Vietnam.
Sendo received nearly 2 billion yen ($18 million at current rates) in funding from three Japanese companies including SBI in 2014.
