SariSuki, a Philippines-based social commerce startup, said Wednesday it has raised $7.1 million from regional and global investors, bringing its total funding to $10.7 million in 2021.

The company said in a statement venture capital investors included Openspace, Susquehanna International Group (SIG), Global Founders Capital (GFC), Saison Capital, JG Digital Equity Ventures, and Foxmont Capital Partners are amongst those who participated in the round.

The new funding will be used to increase the business’ product assortment, dark warehouses, and geographic expansion.

SariSuki is also expanding into quick commerce with a vision to build an end-to-end eGrocery platform in the Philippines. With the launch of this new service, it is now able to create greater value for producers at source as well as hyper-convenience for consumers.

SariSuki is a Philippine Community Group Buying startup for daily essentials and groceries. It aims to provide affordable high quality products via efficient sourcing whilst providing additional livelihood to its community leaders/sellers.

It was founded by a team emerging from within Southeast Asia’s scale-up tech giants. Brian Cu was a co-founder of Zalora Philippines and Grab Philippines, where he assumed the role of Country Head and drove the super-app’s exponential growth over the past 7 years.

“We are a set of founders that grew up in the Philippines and have an understanding of our market. This, combined with our background in scaling up large tech companies in the region, made us realize that we can do more with the supply chain infrastructure we have built. Quick commerce is a way for us to expand into serving the segment of our market that seeks hyper-convenience for a hyper-local product mix for their daily needs” said Brian Cu, Co-Founder of SariSuki.

SariSuki is now entering quick commerce on the back of 36 times growth in the past 9 months. The business has served more than 60,000 consumers and grown the team to over 100 employees. Importantly, it has the unique advantage of having built a strong and robust supply chain at speed, which will serve a network of dark stores for its quick commerce service. Its quick commerce app commits to delivering high-quality produce in under 15 minutes within its coverage areas.

To address long-existing supply chain inefficiencies, SariSuki also adopts an agent-assisted model, servicing its consumers through community leaders. Members of communities who set up their business as a community leader see meaningful income expansion as they profit from selling produce whilst performing the last mile fulfillment. This model has enabled the company to offer supermarket quality products at wet market prices.

“SariSuki’s increasing sector dominance has resulted from addressing key pain points and barriers to e-commerce adoption with a model that builds confidence amongst, and value for, consumers. We recognized that the trust that those communities are putting in their community leader, who consistently delivers high-quality local produce, will help to rapidly accelerate vital e-commerce adoption” said Hian Goh, Co-Founder of Openspace.

Openspace provides venture capital funding to back companies in Southeast Asia creating a transformative impact where tech meets life. By focusing on the fundamentals and with a wide-scale operations team, its 30+ professionals actively partner with its portfolio companies to help build viable and responsible B2B and B2C businesses. This includes GoTo (Gojek), Kumu, Pluang, Biofourmis and Halodoc. Openspace now has four funds with over $650 million under management, supported by global and regional institutional investors. It also has crypto exposure through its Ocular fund. It is headquartered in Singapore, with active offices in Jakarta, Bangkok, Manila, and Ho Chi Minh City.

“In a complex market like the Philippines, hyperlocal expertise is crucial to lead the quick commerce sector. Brian and his team are proven entrepreneurs with a deep understanding of what it takes to drive meaningful local adoption and the success of SariSuki’s operations over the past year is a testament to this. Their know-how and career-long relationships with stakeholders across the supply chain has set them up with the best opportunity to succeed and we look forward to being a part of their growth story,” said Chris Sirise, Saison Capital Partner.

Saison Capital is an early-stage venture capital fund (pre-seed to Series B) with a focus on emerging markets. It back ambitious founders solving big problems, focused on embedded finance – non-fintech companies expanding into fintech. It is backed by Credit Saison, a Tokyo-listed 30 billion asset under management (AUM) consumer finance company with extensive financial services across Asia.

“We are honored to back a stellar team bringing convenience and a world-class customer experience to groceries shopping in the Philippines. In our view, the high density, growing disposable income, maturing digital connectivity and sheer population size in key urban areas in the Philippines, finally set the stage for the next cohort of large consumer-facing tech businesses in the country,” said Tito Costa, Partner at GFC.

GFC is a global seed and growth investor. Over the past two decades, it has backed over five hundred entrepreneurs worldwide. Facebook, LinkedIn, Zalando, Slack, Revolut, Canva, DeliveryHero, Lazada, Traveloka, Nium, Moladin, Zepto, Spenmo, Astro represent a few of its global successes. The firm manages over $1.2 billion of committed capital and invests out of eleven offices worldwide.

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