Lapasar co-founder and CEO Thinesh Kumar and NEXEA managing partner Ben Lim
Lapasar, an online B2B wholesale procurement startup in Malaysia, has announced that it has raised RM7.5 million (US$1.8 million) in a funding round led by startup accelerator-cum-investment firm NEXEA and shopper360 limited.
Malaysian equity crowdfunding platform pitchIN, besides other undisclosed individuals, also participated.
According to Lapasar founder and CEO Thinesh Kumar, “The funding will be used to accelerate growth for our wholesale business. We are targeting to serve 10,000 grocery stores, restaurants and hawker stalls over the next 24 months with extensive distribution capabilities by rolling out our mobile app Lapasar-Borong.”
“We aim to be the go-to mobile app for retailers to source and buy their FMCG goods at consistently low prices, delivered within 48 hours for free,” he added.
The startup was founded in 2017 by Kumar (CEO), Lakshman Das (COO) and Dannis Raj (Chief Process Officer), who wanted to provide vendors with an equal opportunity to sell their products.
Also Read: Lapasar offers a B2C-like e-commerce experience to corporate procurement in Malaysia
Building on that idea, the trio then created Lapasar, an online platform that connects corporates to FMGC (fast-moving consumer goods) suppliers across Malaysia.
Besides being a marketplace, Lapasar also has features like request-for-quotation management, vendor management, reports, document management system, e-bidding and benchmarking.
Lapasar started entering the FMCG wholesale market only in June 2020. This has helped it grow 172 per cent y-o-y and above 100x since its first funding round, it said.
“Lapasar is also beginning to explore lines of credits with partners for the shops as a source of income which has shown early promise and will continue to expand on that as well,” Kumar shared.
In early 2018, Lapasar raised a pre-seed round of funding from NEXEA. The startup also managed to receive a grant from Cradle that year.
Lapasar has also participated in Project Alpha, SeedPlus’s pre-seed startup program, which was conducted in partnership with Amazon Web Services.
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Image Credit: Lapasar
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