Thailand-based hobby lifestyle community commerce platform Mercular announced on Monday it has raised and completed its series A fundraising exercise, raising a total of $4 million.
The same round is further participated by Thailand retail conglomerate Central Retail, Mercular said in a statement.
The initial investors include regional and local investment firms such as Kairous Capital, Cyber Agent, 500 TukTuks, N-Vest Venture, and Premier Advisory Group.
Mercular announced in April it has raised its Series A investment amounting to approximately $3 million.
“Without physical touch, the real integrated shopping experiences can hardly be established. Advanced hobbyists enjoy experiencing the product in their hands. Therefore, Mercular will pursue an omnichannel strategy where great support from Central Retail will be a great opportunity for us,” Mercular Founder and Chief Executive Officer Woragun said.
“With the latest fundraise, we target to upgrade our platform with the aim to provide utmost conveniences for all the users, introducing hobby lifestyle products and categories such as workstation, smart home, etc., and incorporating new community-like features,” he added.
Mercular specifically targets those who are into hobbies relating to music, games, sports, and home living. In addition to offering products, its platform also handles an end-to-end shopping experience: pre-sales processes such as providing product and content reviews and post-sales processes such as order claims handling.
Central Retail adopts a growth strategy by supporting the upcoming startups who can challenge the status quo and tackle the retail industry with new innovative ideas. There is great synergy between Central Retail and Mercular in co-developing a new retail model, a community-like commerce shopping experience, Mercular said.
Envisioning the vast growth potential of the Hobby Lifestyle category in Thailand and in Southeast Asia, Central Retail believes Mercular stands out as a great company and partner to capitalize on the huge market opportunity and to capture a meaningful market share.
For Mercular, the goal is to create the most value for every hobby and thus, the funding will be deployed to create an all-encompassing community-like shopping experience for the hobbyists. One of the main pillars in enabling community commerce is the omnichannel strategy, and Central’s vast retail ecosystem will be a great platform for Mercular to catapult on, the company said.
Mercular currently sells more than 20,000 hobby & lifestyle products on the website, as of September 1, 2021. The company’s range of products includes headphones, speakers, smart home devices, computers and accessories, gaming gear, smart gadgets, mobile accessories, toys and collectibles, game consoles as well as drones and cameras.
The startup acts as the main distribution channel for these products. committed to creating a friendly shopping experience and easy access to hassle-free online shopping, it considers the needs of hobbyists and focuses on building a purposeful community commerce platform that meets different needs and determines the highest possible value.
Central Retail is the retail leader in Thailand and the flagship company at the roots of Central Group. It has a network of 3,687 branded stores (as of June 30, 2021) offering multi-category products through multi-format channels such as department stores, convenience stores, specialty stores, supermarkets, hypermarkets, plazas, and online sales through omnichannel platforms.
As of June 30, Central Retail has its presence in 3 countries – in 54 provinces of Thailand, 39 provinces of Vietnam, and across key cities in Italy.
Disclosure: Kairous Capital is an investor in TechNode Global.
Hobby lifestyle e-commerce platform Mercular raises $3M Series A led by Kairous Capital