Leading e-commerce player Club Factory has raised US$ 100 million in a Series D round of financing led by leading venture capital firm Qiming Venture Partners and other top investors who have a strong global vision with a key focus of investing in the India market, including Bertelsmann, IDG Capital, and other Fortune 500 companies from USA and Asia.
Global markets, especially India, has become a major focus of attention for Club Factory. According to app download and usage data from App Annie, Club Factory recently surpassed Snapdeal to rank among the third largest e-commerce shopping apps in India, next to Amazon and Flipkart.
Over the past two years, Club Factory has continued to build a global company with its technical capabilities and global vision. It has achieved more than 10 times growth in the past six months for its Indian SME business. The rapid growth of Club Factory in the Indian market is primarily due to its zero-commission strategy, where the sellers are able to transfer the cost-benefit to the users. In addition to more localized user operations and marketing, Club Factory’s vision of ‘building the ecosystem for the Indian Sellers’ has worked well, making it one of India’s largest online sales channels.
Talking on the announcement, Club Factory Founder and CEO Vincent said, “Club Factory offers local sellers zero percent commission marketplace platform, and any legally qualified Indian seller can sell on Club Factory. At the same time, we have also pioneered to strengthen the ‘store-within-platform’ concept in India’s e-commerce industry, allowing direct contact between buyers and sellers through our application. 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, has worked very well for us in India.”
“India has the world’s second-largest population with the purchasing power parity (PPP) ranking third worldwide. A huge market like this undoubtedly has diversified market demand, but many players pursue a narrow range of products through a closed ecosystem. Indian customers also need another kind of e-commerce platform – a more open one – which provides more options to customers and more vitality to the e-commerce field. This is why Club Factory has been able to rapidly grow in India”, Vincent added.
Club Factory aims to further enhance its Open Platform Strategy post this new round of funding round by expanding its range of products to deliver more offerings in different Categories. The platform also looks to attract more local sellers and enhance its data technology capability to make Indian retail more efficient.
