Teleport – the rebranded cargo and logistics platform of AirAsia – and venture capital firm Gobi Partners have invested $10.6 million in regional e-commerce and parcel delivery player, EasyParcel.
EasyParcel, which has close to half a million users will use the Series B funding to expand its offering for SME customers, leveraging Teleport’s logistics and infrastructure capabilities which include more than 100 cities, 10,000 AirAsia flights per week and some 1,000,000+ tonnes of cargo capacity.
The announcement was made by AirAsia Group chief executive officer (CEO) Tony Fernandes, Teleport CEO Pete Chareonwongsak, Gobi Partners managing Director Malaysia Jamaludin Bujang and EasyParcel founder and CEO Clarence Leong in Kuala Lumpur.
Fernandes said: “I’ve always believed AirAsia’s logistics business has a huge opportunity to be part of the social and e-commerce ecosystem. Today, we are unlocking that potential with the help of EasyParcel, making parcel delivery across Asean more accessible and inclusive for everyone.
Chareonwongsak added: “Teleport will transform the logistics and e-commerce ecosystem as we know it, making it easier for people, especially SMEs, to move items from A to B. With our deep operational expertise, this investment will allow us to accelerate the accessibility of logistics for SMEs, while at the same time encourage more collaboration with the regions logistics startup community.
“We are really impressed by what Clarence and the EasyParcel team have built and look forward to working with them to grow social and e-commerce across the region.”
Leong said: “Our mission is to address last-mile delivery challenges. Since we started in 2014, we’ve been successfully making in-roads in our home country, Malaysia, as well as in Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand. The funding received from Teleport and Gobi Partners is key to strengthening our footprint in those existing markets.
“We are grateful for the opportunity to collaborate and excited to start our journey together. EasyParcel’s Series B round follows a successful series A, which was secured from Axiata Digital Innovation Fund (ADIF) and angel investors in January 2016.”
Today’s investment from Teleport is funded from retained earnings, whilst Gobi Partners makes its investment through the Meranti Asean Growth Fund, a fund which seeks to invest in Asean innovation such as cloud services, e-commerce and financial technology.
