Evermos, an Indonesia social commerce platform focused on halal products, has closed a $39-million fresh funding round led by World Bank member International Finance Corporation (IFC), a top executive said.
DealStreetAsia first broke the development in February.
The latest round sees new investors SWC Global, Endeavor Catalyst, and Uni-President Asset Holdings joining the startup’s cap table. Several existing investors including Jungle Ventures, Shunwei Capital, UOB Venture Management and Telkomsel Mitra Inovasi are participating in the Series C round.
Evermos plans to utilise the fresh funding to expand its network and enhance its tech capability.
“With this funding, we will continue with our plan of disrupting retail in lower-tier cities by expanding our network in Sumatra and increasing our presence in Java. We will invest more in technology including artificial intelligence tools to help resellers understand their customers better,” Evermos co-founder and CEO Ghufron Mustaqim told DealStreetAsia.
The company will also explore M&A opportunities as it pursues both organic and inorganic growth options.
Following this funding, which is said to be a full equity round, the company claims to be cash sufficient for the next few years. “After this round, we no longer need [further] fundraising. Only if we explore an IPO, we might want to strengthen our balance sheet with another funding round,” Evermos president and co-founder Arip Tirta said.
The company last raised $30 million in a Series B funding round in 2021 led by UOB Venture Management’s Asia Impact Investment Fund II. IFC, MDI Ventures, Telkomsel Mitra Innovation, and Future Shape participated in the round along with existing investors Jungle Ventures and Shunwei Capital.
The company had closed its $8.25 million Series A funding round led by Jungle Ventures back in 2019.
Founded in 2018, Evermos connects brands with resellers and customers across Indonesia. The startup targets the Muslim community, which makes up 86.7% of the Indonesian population.
Evermos currently deals with over 1000 brands, owned by small Indonesian businesses, in the fashion, halal health, beauty products and food & beverage verticals. The Evermos app has reportedly been downloaded about 1 million times. Currently, there are about 140,000 active resellers on the platform and the firm aims to onboard 1 million active resellers by 2025.
Indonesia’s social commerce sector has attracted investor interest in recent years. Among major deals, Super raised $70 million in June 2022 led by US-based investor New Enterprise Associates, while Kitabeli bagged $20 million in July last year led by Glade Brook Capital Partners.
The Evermos fundraising also comes at a time when Indonesia’s B2B e-commerce space is going through a churn. Several startups in the space are struggling to find revenue streams as they face an uphill climb toward monetisation and scalability.
As reported by DealStreetAsia in March, social commerce startup Shox Rumahan is said to have laid off all its employees and terminated business operations on February 25,
