Malaysia’s dropshipping platform Kumoten secures pre-Series A funding from Cradle Fund
Claimed itself to be the largest homegrown dropshipping platform, Malaysia-based Kumoten has raised pre-Series A funding led by Cradle Fund and joined by Commerce.Asia Ventures. To date, the company shared that it has more than 100,000 stock keeping units (SKUs) in its catalogue.
Back in 2017, Kumoten has garnered Commerce DotAsia Ventures Sdn Bhd (Commerce.Asia)’s attention in a seed stage, and received mentorship from the venture’s founder and executive chairman Kumar Bangah under Commerce.Asia’s GrowthX Market Acceleration Program. Now, the venture came back for Kumoten’s aid in this round led by Cradle Fund.
Kumoten has said that the fund from this recent equity round will be used to expand its product research and development team, as well as talent acquisition. It also plans to launch local dropshipping sites in Indonesia, Philippines, and Thailand.
Kumoten’s CEO Isaac Leong has expressed that Kumoten will continue to be the seller-centered solution that helps sellers take care of their stock information and cash flow info.
“We want online sellers to enjoy selling online and to focus on sales and marketing activities instead of worrying about the cost of investing in stocks, taking product photos and writing product descriptions,” said Leong.
Kumoten is said to be the first in adopting the Automated Dropship system, where users do not have to download or copy and paste product data. Their approach is called “pay-as-you-sell” instead of the conventional business model of “buy-first, sell-later”, helping to remove the risks of keeping stocks.
So far, the company that was founded in 2014 by Leong and his brother, Leong Yew Meng, has worked alongside online marketplaces in Malaysia such as Lazada, Shopee, Lelong.my and 11Street.my.