E-fullfillment startup, iStore iSend, raises US$5.5mil, co-led by Gobi Partners and EasyParcel

• In strong position to help clients enhance efficiency and SKU movement
• In China, S’pore, Indonesia and M’sia with Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam next

iStore iSend, a Malaysian homegrown e-fulfillment service company, announced yesterday that it has raised US$5.5 million (RM22.25 million) in a round co-led by regional venture capital firm, Gobi Partners, and leading logistics player, EasyParcel. The funds will be used by the company to scale existing markets and to expand to new countries.

Incorporated in 2015, iStore iSend provides end-to-end services to its clients from storage and pick-and-pack to delivery arrangements when an e-commerce order is received. The company also offers value-added services, such as real-time inventory management and shipment tracking. The integration of its system with e-commerce platforms enables it to receive and fulfill orders the moment they are placed, thus ensuring both speed and efficiency for the delivery process. In addition, iStore iSend has a warehouse management system (WMS) which is used to power brands’ SKU (stock keeping unit) hubs.

“The full-stack services that iStore iSend offers its clients as well as the full integration of its system into the most popular e-commerce sites is a real opportunity for investors that should not be overlooked,” said Thomas G. Tsao (left), Chairman and Founding Partner of Gobi. “With the spike in online shopping brought about by last year’s pandemic, more e-commerce players will want to grow the market by enhancing the efficiency and movement of their SKUs; iStore iSend is in a strong position to help with those efforts.”

Gobi’s co-investor for this deal is logistics startup, EasyParcel. Based in Penang, the 2014 launched company is a longtime player in the logistics and e-commerce industries, having helped more than 700,000 micro SMEs.

Speaking on its investment, Clarence Leong, founder and CEO of EasyParcel said, “Having been on the receiving end of fundraising, it’s gratifying to come a full circle and invest in a company whose business is increasingly becoming the backbone of the e-commerce industry.”

iStore iSend has grown strongly since its inception. As the e-commerce landscape in Malaysia continues to grow against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is providing timely and innovative solutions.

“This strategic investment adds value to EasyParcel’s customers as they can seamlessly unlock iStore iSend’s fulfillment solutions and e-enabler services. Investing into iStore iSend strengthens our ‘Delivery Made Easy’ tagline and what is offered to the end user isn’t only last-mile deliveries, but warehousing and pick-and-pack services too,” explains Clarence.

“We are looking forward to being able to offer our services to even more e-commerce players in the region,” said Joe Khoo, cofounder of iStore iSend. “We believe that we are unique because we have two strong areas of business: inventory turnover, because we can leverage on existing data to predict demand and purchase, which in turn leads to a higher turnover rate; and high SKUs fulfillment — industries like fashion normally have high SKUs which makes inventory management very difficult.”

With our technology and operational expertise, fashion companies can efficiently manage the pick, pack, and dispatch, and return of fashion items.” With the announcement of this investment, Tommy Yong, cofounder of iStore iSend notes, “This investment comes at a great time, especially during this trying period, where going online is a requirement by most businesses in order to survive. iStore iSend will be able to offer e-commerce supply chain digitization to help even more businesses transition into e-commerce,” he adds.

While iStore iSend currently has operations in China, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. It aims to utilize a portion of this round to expand the fast-developing and underserved markets of the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. Meanwhile, expect further M&A with the acquisition of online-to-offline (O2O) clients in existing markets.