May 4, 2021 – SINGAPORE – SCI Ecommerce, Southeast Asia’s leading cross-border e-commerce enabler, has completed a fundraising round led by Asia Partners. The size of the round exceeded SG$50 million.

Founded in Singapore in 2014 by Joseph Liu Jiannan, SCI Ecommerce specializes in cross-border e- commerce, a high growth segment within the rapidly expanding e-commerce industry across Southeast Asia and China. With offices in Singapore, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand, SCI plays a key enabling role across many of Asia’s most important e-commerce trade routes for some of the world’s most respected brands.

As the fastest growing e-commerce enabler in Asia, SCI Ecommerce was the third fastest growing company on 2021’s Financial Times ranking of 500 high growth companies in Asia Pacific, having grown its revenues more than 75x over three years. SCI more than doubled its 2019 revenues to over US$100 million of revenue in 2020. It has been EBITDA positive since 2019 and was net income positive in 2020, which is rare particularly among the top players in the region.

“This fundraising round, the first large institutional equity investment in SCI’s history, is a strong endorsement of our integrated business model serving many of the world’s most iconic consumer brands,” said Liu, who is also SCI’s Group CEO. SCI’s existing investors include multiple co-founders of Alibaba, the Singapore based venture capital firm Jubilee Capital, and several additional ultra-high net worth technology industry entrepreneurs from Southeast and East Asia.

SCI is uniquely positioned with its cross-border e-commerce solutions, which cover the six major economies of Southeast Asia as well as China. SCI is a certified e-commerce solutions provider by Southeast and East Asia’s leading e-commerce platforms, including Alibaba’s Tmall platform, Lazada, and Shopee.

SCI provides a comprehensive suite of services to its brand partners, which include Unilever, Abbot, Stanley Black & Decker, Crayola, Nestle, Vinda, and Danone. Its integrated business model

  • Helps its brand partners expand into the Southeast Asia e-commerce market and China Cross Border E-commerce (CBEC) market by setting up and managing over 6,000 online stores across both regions’ major e-commerce platforms and social media channels
  • Applies data analytics and e-commerce software tools to optimize online traffic to gross merchandise value (GMV) conversion, brand awareness, consumer loyalty, and the customer service experience, and
  • Closely measures e-commerce results for brand partners, which creates a feedback loop which enable partners to refine their products and be more responsive to consumer

“Today’s announcement is also testament to the talent and hard work of SCI’s 170 employees, who have worked tirelessly to bring our company to this point,” said Liu. “Our vision is to become the Number One e-commerce solutions provider in Southeast Asia. We are deeply committed to our mission of helping both international and local brands enter and succeed in Southeast Asia and in China’s Cross Border E-commerce (CBEC) market.”

“Culture is always the ultimate differentiator in any industry, and ours is no exception,” added Liu. “Our six core values of putting our customers first, our results-orientation, our ownership mentality, collaboration and teamwork, self-reliance, and embracing change are expressed not only in what we do each day for our brand partners, but how we do it – and that makes all the difference in earning their trust.”

SCI plans to use the investment to develop its next generation of software tools for brand partners, as well as expand its geographic capabilities for cross-border e-commerce operations and fulfillment.

Based in Singapore, Asia Partners is a growth equity investment firm focused on technology and technology-enabled companies. Its US$384M fund, announced in March 2021, is the largest debut technology fund in Southeast Asia’s history and included limited partners from six continents. Prior to co-founding Asia Partners, the Firm’s six co-founders played leadership roles in Southeast Asia across Naspers, Sea Ltd, Bukalapak, eBay, and Vinamilk.

“We are deeply impressed by what Joseph and his team have accomplished in such a short period of time,” said Nicholas A. Nash, a co-founder of Asia Partners. “As our region’s leading e-commerce enabler, SCI is playing a foundational role in bringing Asia to the world and the world to Asia. Cross- border trade makes the world more prosperous and more cohesive, raising standards of living and quality of life. We look forward to working closely with Joseph and his very capable team over the years to come.”