HOMEGROWN “Amazon-like” company Great Deals E-Commerce Corp. announced last May 19 it was able to raise P1.4 billion (about $30 million) in capital through its Series B funding round.
The said funding round was led by Fast Logistics Group with support from Citicorp spin-off CVC Capital Partners SICAV-FIS S.A.. The latter is one of the world’s largest global private equity firms with $118 billion in assets under management. Navegar Inc., a private equity firm that infused $12-million Series A fund into Great Deals, also contributed to this funding round, Great Deals said. The transaction was advised by Rocket Equities Corp.
Great Deals said its founder and chief executive officer Steve Sy, Fast Logistics Group President and CEO William Chiongbian II and Navegar Managing Partner Javier Infante, along with their management teams and advisors, participated in the signing of definitive agreements.
The announcement came before consultancy firm Bain & Co. released its report on Southeast Asia’s private equity market. A statement by Bain & Co. said that while private equity suffered due to uncertainties last year, deals in the Internet and/or technology industry accounted for majority of deal volume and value (61 percent) in the region in 2020.
“This [Internet/tech industry] is now the leading sector throughout Southeast Asia,” Bain & Co. said in the statement.
“While there were many challenges in the private equity market in 2020, including a decline in the overall investment market, the continued growth that we are seeing into the internet/tech industry is a cause for optimism,” Usman Akhtar, a partner in Bain & Company’s Private Equity practice, based in Singapore, was quoted in the statement as saying.
Bain & Co. said it also sees “shadow capital investing” as growing in importance in the Southeast Asian private equity market. The consultancy firm said it “is now seeing more than 75 percent of the 30 highest-funded Southeast Asia startups receiving shadow capital investment into their businesses.
“Shadow capital also participated in more than 60 percent of all Southeast Asia deals by value in 2019 and has continued to grow,” the firm said. “Shadow capital investment brings tremendous value to Southeast Asia’s startups and private companies, allowing for growth similar to that in areas like the internet/tech sector.”
According to Great Deals’ statement, it will “deploy this growth capital in technology development and the construction of an automated ‘fulfillment’ center—both critical to meet the growing demand in e-commerce and to level-up the game in customer experience.” “We love a good challenge: we recognize that Philippine logistics is by far the toughest across the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) region and remains to impede our e-Commerce penetration outside GMA [greater metropolitan area],” Sy said. “With this funding and strategic support from our new investors, this opens new opportunities to drive forward instant commerce: delivery under one hour, wherever you are.”