AirAsia’s cargo and logistic arm Teleport (formerly known RedCargo Logistics) has co-invested with venture capital firm Gobi Partners, under a 50:50 arrangement, a total of US$10.6 million in Penang-based online courier platform startup, EasyParcel.
The startup raised an undisclosed amount in Series A round from Axiata Digital Innovation Fund (ADIF) and angel investors in January 2016. It will use the funds from this Series B to expand its offering to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and scale online delivery services across ASEAN.
EasyParcel will leverage the logistics and infrastructure capabilities of Teleport with a network of over 100 cities and AirAsia’s 10,000 flights per week with about one million tonnes of cargo capacity
Described as a “web-based parcel consolidator and an e-commerce shipping solutions provider”, EasyParcel was established in 2014 and has delivered more than 19 million parcels since then. It has about half a million users across Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia.
Its founder and CEO Clarence Leong said the fresh funding “is key to strengthening our footprint in those existing markets” and that the company’s mission “is to address last-mile delivery challenges”.
Commented AirAsia Group chief executive officer Tan Sri Tony Fernandes on the investment: “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.”
Teleport chief executive officer Pete Chareonwongsak sees the partnership transforming the logistics and e-commerce platform “especially for SMEs to move items from A to B.”
“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,” he added.
Gobi Partners chairman and founding partner Thomas G Tsao said his company would combine efforts with its co-investor Teleport to help EasyParcel solve South-east Asia’s logistics bottlenecks and boost the industry’s data analytics.
“As a platform, EasyParcel is uniquely positioned to streamline the customer’s full journey by integrating end-to-end logistics services with its partners. This generates operating efficiencies overall and creates synergies for the entire ecosystem, including our existing logistics investments, Deliveree and Zoom.”
The investment from Teleport is funded from retained earnings, while Gobi Partners is making its investment through the Meranti Asean Growth Fund that invests in ASEAN innovation such as cloud services, e-commerce and financial technology. Both parties are now major shareholders and board members of EasyParcel.
