Led · Equity · Dec 2023

Lazada is a flagship Southeast Asia e-commerce platform owned by Alibaba. It connects roughly 160 million active consumers with more than 1 million monthly active sellers. The company recently received a $230 million capital injection from Alibaba, its first injection this year. Since 2016, Alibaba has cumulatively invested over $7.7 billion into Lazada. Lazada has launched Lazada Global Plus, a logistics pricing system; registration was opened to mainland China cross-border merchants and drew strong merchant interest. The article does not disclose revenue or profitability figures. Lazada operates a major e-commerce marketplace serving consumers across Southeast Asia. The company targets users in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand. It historically received support from Rocket Internet’s Samwer brothers. Lazada is majority-owned by Alibaba Group, which acts as its parent company. In December 2023 the company received a $634 million capital injection from Alibaba. The article does not report other operating metrics or additional financial details. Lazada operates an online marketplace serving Southeast Asia. It is currently run under Alibaba’s spinoff Global Digital Commerce Group, which received board approval in May to seek external financing for expansion. Alibaba has invested a further $845 million into Lazada, according to Tech in Asia. The latest capital injection came three months after a previous $5.99 billion investment and is reported to raise Alibaba’s total bet to nearly $6 billion since gaining control in 2016. The funds are expected to bolster support for local merchants. Lazada faces fierce regional competition from Tencent-backed Shopee, which remains the largest online retail platform in the region. Lazada operates an e-commerce platform serving Southeast Asian markets. The company recently received a $342.5 million investment from its parent, Alibaba. That injection is the third additional investment Alibaba has made into Lazada this year. The latest funding brings Lazada’s valuation to $11.3 billion, according to DealStreetAsia. Alibaba has injected more than $1.6 billion into Lazada so far this year. The company has seen frequent personnel changes in 2022, including the June appointment of James Dong as Lazada Group CEO. Operating metrics in Alibaba’s Q3 earnings show order growth slowed in the June–September period while losses per order narrowed by 25% year‑over‑year for the same period. Lazada is an online shopping and selling destination launched in 2012 and operating in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. The platform connects consumers and merchants across Southeast Asia. The company intends to use new capital to accelerate growth plans in the region and deepen its integration into the Alibaba ecosystem. Integration with Alibaba is expected to let Lazada tap Alibaba’s resources to better serve consumers and empower merchants. Leadership changes accompanied the investment: Lucy Peng, an Alibaba founder and senior partner, will take on the additional role of CEO, while Lazada founder Max Bittner will transition to a senior advisor role. The articles report significant capital support from Alibaba but do not disclose other operating metrics.

Led · Seed · Jul 2022

Founded in 2022 in Madrid, Clevergy develops a cloud-based energy management platform used by Spanish utilities and their residential customers. The software lets households monitor consumption in real time, optimise solar self-production, and remotely manage devices such as EV chargers, batteries, and heat pumps. For energy suppliers, the system integrates these distributed assets into their operations, preparing them for emerging flexibility markets. Clevergy reports that its growth tripled last year and that the platform is already deployed in hundreds of thousands of homes. With fresh capital, the company plans to scale its offering across Europe and cement a leadership position in the continent’s digital energy transition. The startup has previously attracted attention as one of Spain’s fastest-growing ClimateTech firms and was earlier highlighted among Madrid’s top emerging companies.

Participated · Series B · Feb 2022

Spenmo provides a unified payables and corporate spend management platform that consolidates vendor payments, payroll and transactional workflows. The product integrates with popular accounting software rather than replacing it, and it combines digital wallets and bank accounts to secure competitive exchange rates. The platform serves many clients with cross-border needs — over 80% of customers conduct cross-border transactions — and saves users substantial time and money, reportedly over 50 hours and $10,000 per client each month. Spenmo is focused on scaling across Southeast Asia and is actively organizing payment systems in Vietnam and Indonesia. The company positions itself as a finance workflow and payables software startup rather than a neobank. CEO Mohandass Kalaichelvan emphasizes building a streamlined payables experience for finance teams. Spenmo began as an expense management platform but refocused on building a unified payables experience to remove silos across vendor payments, payroll and bank-account reconciliation. Its product set includes corporate cards, integrations with bank accounts and FX wallets, and connections to accounting software such as Xero and QuickBooks. The company targets SMBs that operate across borders, with about 80% of customers performing cross-border payments and typical clients processing roughly 500 to 9,000 payables per month. Spenmo does not aim to become a neobank; instead it helps businesses manage the bank accounts they already have and find better FX rates. The startup is focused on Singapore plus Vietnam and Indonesia, where cross-border payroll and supplier payments create complex payable workflows. Spenmo is a Y Combinator alum and launched last year.

Led · Seed · Oct 2021

Founded in 2020 by husband-and-wife team Ismael and Sophia Belkhayat, Chari began as a mobile marketplace enabling corner shops to procure fast-moving consumer goods directly from distributors. The company has since evolved toward a banking-as-a-service model, using its recently obtained payment-institution licence from Bank Al-Maghrib to embed digital payments, credit, and other financial tools inside its merchant app. More than 20,000 small retailers across Morocco, Tunisia, and Côte d’Ivoire now use Chari’s platform, making it one of the region’s largest informal-retail digitisation plays. With a “super app” approach, Chari aims to transform these mom-and-pop stores into grassroots financial access points for underbanked communities. Future plans include opening its in-house financial rails to third-party developers, positioning the startup as a regional fintech enabler across Francophone Africa. To date, Chari has raised roughly $17 million in venture funding, which supports both its commerce logistics operations and the build-out of its fintech infrastructure.

Participated · Equity · Aug 2021

expertlead operates an HRtech platform that helps companies find, evaluate and hire IT professionals by combining AI-driven talent identification with peer-to-peer technical screenings (video interviews, technical Q&As and live coding tests). The company places freelancers on a per-project basis and also offers objective technical assessments of applicants for permanent roles to accelerate hiring and reduce bias. Its community of freelancers can additionally serve as technical interviewers and receive benefits such as training, discounted insurance, coworking access and hardware deals. The startup employs around 100 people and reports it expects a +500% increase in revenue this year compared to last year. expertlead plans to invest the fresh funds into developing and expanding new and existing tools, growing the team, and launching a SaaS recruiting product that will let companies self-approach and assess millions of IT professionals. Its SaaS recruiting software is already used by Futurepath to recruit IT experts exclusively for the Volkswagen Group and is slated for wider customer availability. expertlead provides companies with access to a global pool of qualified tech freelancers to deliver tech roadmaps while avoiding complex candidate quality screening processes. Companies can upload their requests free of charge and typically receive suitable candidates' profiles within 48 hours. The platform vets senior developers, data science experts, experienced product/project managers and UI/UX designers using proprietary coding tests and technical interview processes. It also supports freelance tech professionals across project acquisition, administrative tasks, continuous training and peer-to-peer learning. Founded in January 2018 and based in Berlin, the company currently employs around 40 people and counts clients including Lufthansa, Daimler and Deutsche Bank. Following its Series A, expertlead plans to pursue international growth and further automate its products.