Singapore’s Una Brands scores $15m in Series A funding

Singapore-based e-commerce startup Una Brands announced raising $15 million in its Series A funding round.

The investment came after the company secured $40 million in its seed round from venture capital investors 500 Startups, Kingsway Capital, 468 Capital, Presight Capital and Global Founders Capital.

White Star Capital and Alpha JWC co-led the round. Besides its current investors, Ninjavan co-founder Alvin Teo also joined the round.

The company, which provides a “fast and fair way” for e-commerce business owners (vendors) to sell their companies, will use the new capital to acquire e-commerce brands in Asia Pacific and further strengthen its technology and team.

“With this raise, we will continue to invest in acquiring great brands, developing our multi-channel capabilities, expanding into our newly launched markets, and supporting our brands’ growth,” said Kiren Tanna, company’s founder and CEO.

Jeffrey Joe, the managing partner at Alpha JWC, believes that the company’s value proposition will resonate with brands across the region and further propel the growth of D2C in countries such as Indonesia.

Established in 2020, Una Brands has acquired 15 brands selling across multiple e-commerce channels such as Shopify, Shopee, Lazafa, Tokopedia, Amazon. It focuses on profitable independent brands with revenue between $1 million and $50 million.

These brands operate in categories of home & living, baby & pets, and personal care. They are based in Singapore, Australia, China, and Taiwan.

What does Una Brands do once it acquires a business? It improves the revenue and margins by cost-reduction specifically on the revenue side. It conducts performance marketing campaigns and expands the brands to more countries.

Tanna explained they also leverage their scale to reduce unit costs and explore synergies between brands.

Tanna works with Adrian Johnston, Kushal Patel, Tobias Heusch, and Srinivasan Shridharan as co-founders of the startup.

Una currently employs 90 people across seven offices in Singapore, Australia, India, China, Taiwan, Indonesia and Malaysia.