Social Commerce Startup Carousell Is Raising $50M To Expand In Asia

Carousell, a three-year-old mobile marketplace that enables social commerce, could emerge as the next big e-commerce player in Southeast Asia. That’s because, according to multiple sources in to the investor and e-commerce communities in Southeast Asia, the Singapore-based company is currently trying to raise a whopping $50 million Series B to expand its footprint across Asia.

Carousell did not reply to multiple requests for comment or confirmation of its fundraising plans.

Founded in May 2012, Carousell’s app is a peer-to-peer commerce marketplace, much like a Craigslist for mobile. Users post items that are for sale, those interested in buying them then initiative a conversation to finalize a price, payment (which happens outside of the app, for now) and a place to meet/mailing options to deliver to goods. The company’s tagline — “Snap to Sell, Chat to Buy” — emphasizes the focus on social commerce made easy. (Developing its tech — and potentially adding an in-app payment system — could also be on the cards for such a big round, but that’s us speculating as this has not been confirmed by sources.)

Timing would certainly suggest that Carousell is out in the field raising new capital. It’s been more than a year since it closed a $6 million Series A led by Sequoia in November 2014. It previously took an $800,000 seed investment led by Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten.

At the time of that Series A, we reported that “eventually, Carousell’s founders hope to take it further into the Asia-Pacific region” and that’s exactly what this round — which we understand that the company has been talking to investors about for around a month — is aimed at doing.

The Carousell service is currently available in Singapore, Indonesia and Taiwan, where it can be access via iOS and Android apps as well as its website. The exact scope of the startup’s planned expansion isn’t clear, but more markets in Southeast Asia — such as Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines — are likely to be priorities, in addition to reaching other parts of the wider Asian continent.

While Carousell has spawned a dedicated following and gone beyond early adopters — as the existence of parody Tumblr “Carouhell,” which documents some of the stranger stories from the service, shows — its mission is challenging. Most e-commerce happens on larger, well-backed sites like Rocket Internet’s Lazada and Zalora, SoftBank-backed Tokopedia in Indonesia, and social networks like people’s Facebook and Instagram pages. Building out the Carousell marketplace/platform is an addition challenge beyond encouraging people to sell their goods via a P2P system.

That said, the genre seems to have plenty of potential in Asia — and Southeast Asia, in particular — where many people are thrifty and private sales of unwanted or no longer used items are commonplace offline. In the emerging peer-to-peer commerce space, there are few sites with the calibre of investors or size of funding of Carousel. Another $50 million in the kitty would certainly help to move things forward.

Facebook Partners With 50 Publishers To Launch Instant Articles In Asia

Facebook is bringing its Instant Article media format to Asia after more than twenty media from eleven countries in the region — including China, India and Indonesia — went live on the platform. A further 30 more media have agreed to begin publishing Instant Articles “soon,” Facebook said.

The U.S. social network giant said it created Instant Articles to help load news stories and features faster than they do when a user has to leave Facebook and open a web browser. The media format went live in the U.S. first back in May, with a host of initial partners that included the New York Times, BuzzFeed, National Geographic.

With the Western launch completed, Facebook has turned its hand to bringing the media format to new markets.

Facebook extended Instant Articles into Latin America earlier this week and, after mediareported its rollout in India last month, expanding into Asia Pacific, where Facebook has over 500 million monthly active users, will massively increase the potential reach of the service.

“Expanding Instant Articles to Asia is a significant milestone for the product and for each of our early launch partners,” said Andy Mitchell, who is the director of global media partnerships for Facebook said in a statement. “Instant Articles has been designed with extensive feedback from publishers, and we’re excited to bring this collaboration to our publishing partners in Asia to help them distribute fast, interactive articles to their readers in the Facebook app.”

Beyond the initial launch press, Facebook said it has plans to add further content partners from more countries in the region, so we can certainly expect to see more.

Facebook’s Internet.org Now Available Throughout India

Internet.org, Facebook’s initiative to provide free Internet services in developing countries, is now available to all Indians through the Free Basics app on Reliance Communication’s network. The project is meant to give people in emerging economies easy access to the Internet, but has been hit by a slew of criticism.

Reliance Communications is India’s fourth-largest telecom operator, with about 110 million subscribers as of June. According to its site, Free Basics will enable users to use Facebook and Facebook Messenger and access sites like Wikipedia, BBC News, Bing Search, Dictionary.com, and local news services.

Detractors say that by making a handful of services available on its platform, Internet.org gives preferential treatment to its partners, therefore violating the tenets of net neutrality.

In response, Facebook founder and chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg said Internet.org will focus on offering basic services for free (hence the branding of its app) and is not meant to limit access to other providers. The company has also taken steps to make joining Free Basics easier to join for developers and other potential partners.

This has done little to ameliorate critics who are concerned about the potential drawbacks of having a company as large and powerful as Facebook control what millions of new Internet users see.

In addition to India, Free Basics is available in 30 countries throughout Africa, South and Southeast Asia, and Latin America.

Apple Confirms It Will Open A Retail Store In Singapore, Its First In Southeast Asia

Apple has confirmed that it will open its first retail store in Southeast Asia, located in Singapore, as the U.S. phone maker begins to increase its efforts in the region’s fast-growing smartphone market.

The company quietly began hiring for staff to fill its upcoming Singapore last week — as Tech In Asia first reported — and today Angela Ahrendts, Apple’s Senior Vice President for Retail and Online Stores, confirmed that an Apple Store is indeed coming.

“We have more than 900 incredible employees working in our Singapore contact center and are thrilled to begin hiring the team that will open our first Apple Store in Singapore — an incredible international city and shopping destination,” Ahrendts said in a statement sent to TechCrunch. “We can’t wait to deliver the service, education and entertainment that is loved by Apple customers around the world.”

In addition, Reuters reports that the store, and the company’s entire operations in Singapore, will be powered by renewable energy in a move that mirrors initiatives in the U.S., Europe and, most recently, China.

Apple hasn’t confirmed when the store will launch or where it will be located, although there’s been speculation that the firm has already secured retail space at Knightsbridge, in the city-state’s much-sought-after Orchard Road shopping hotspot. That’s according to a note from the existing tenants who claim they are vacating to make space for Apple’s store.

Apple currently uses a mix of licensed third-party retail partners, carriers and its online store for sales in Southeast Asia. Singapore is a country that is among the first wave of launches for new Apple products and therefore a logical first step for expanding the company’s retail footprint. It isn’t clear whether the company is actively planning to introduce its own stores in other parts of Southeast Asia, which is already a focal point for Samsung and smartphone makers from China, such as Xiaomi and OnePlus.

Analyst firm IDC reported this summer that sales of smartphones across Southeast Asia, which counts a cumulative population of over 500 million, grew by 66 percent year-on-year to reach 24 million units between April and June. While that volume is far below China or the U.S., the regional market in Southeast Asia is far from saturated — unlike China and the West — and that spells opportunity.

Exact marketshare for Apple in Southeast Asia isn’t clear but, despite mid- and low-end devices accounting for the bulk of sales in emerging markets and its lack of an own-retail presence, the U.S. company is largely seen as a premium brand by consumers across the region.