Retail

Club Factory raises $100 million in Series D


BENGALURU: Chinese e-commerce marketplace Club Factory, which counts India as a major focus market, has raised $100 million in Series D funding led by Qiming Venture Partners.

The company said other backers included Bertelsmann, IDG Capital, and Fortune 500 companies from the United States and Asia.

The company said it will use the capital to expand its range of products and enter into newer categories. It is also looking at signing up more sellers and enhance its technology stack to grow further in India.

Club Factory said it had become the third most-downloaded e-commerce app in India, after Flipkart and Amazon, citing data from mobile apps analytics tracker App Annie.

“We have changed the status of the Indian e-commerce industry that monopolized information of buyers and sellers, allowing SMEs to own their customers and run their business better. All this, combined with our strategy to reduce the transaction costs of buyers and sellers and allow more local players to enter the ecosystem,” said Club Factory founder and CEO Vincent Lou.

Club Factory, which acts as a marketplace, has begun signing up small local sellers by charging no commission to sell their goods on its platform. While the company claims the move has allowed it to grow quickly in India, industry watchers told ET it had not created much traction.

ET reported in May that Club Factory set up two local units in September 2018 – Globemax Technology India and Globemax Commerce India – to kickstart its local operations, around the time when India began taking action against Chinese e-commerce importers who were allegedly evading taxes through the ‘gift’ route.

Later, customs officials in Mumbai hauled up Globemax Commerce India, along with other Chinese e-commerce players like SheIn, for alleged undervaluation of goods imported into the country.





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