ZeptoExpress (Zepto), an on-demand delivery service from Malaysia, has obtained its first 7-figure venture capital fund (VC) Ficus Capital Risc.
This funding comes four years after the launch of Zepto in 2017, where now co-founder Izzairi Yamin seeks to expand beyond last-mile deliveries. It also hopes to increase Zepto’s coverage to more locations in Malaysia and eventually Vietnam.
Growing independently for 4 years
Ficus Venture Capital (Ficus) is a local private company that is branded as the region’s first Shariah-compatible VC. The company focuses on growth investments to support early-stage technology startups in the ASEAN region.
Prior to this funding, Zepto told Vulcan Post that they had only raised funds through angel investors to channel them to grow the company organically in its early days. Starting as ZeptoBike, the platform was primarily an on-demand delivery service for transporting small packages, similar to Lalamove or GrabExpress.
Izzairi further explained that despite several offers from other capital companies in the past, he could not agree to any of the conditions offered to him. “We did our best to support ourselves and ensure that the company stayed in the fleet without any injection of external funding, just focusing on increasing our revenue and making profits,” he recounted.
“But now, we believe it’s time to get funding and expand our services and offerings beyond what we’ve been doing all these years with the right valuation and price.” Izzairi is confident that with the right guidance from Ficus, the company can accelerate its growth.
Switch gears to an end-to-end logistics service
We last spoke to Zepto in 2020, when they had pivoted to Start Selling Groceries Online during MCO 1.0. While the service has helped them achieve a sudden rise in revenue during the close, the trend fell immediately after the removal of movement restrictions.
Although they have so far stopped service, Izzairi said this pivot was one of his proudest moments for the company during the pandemic. “We managed to set everything from scratch in three days and start the new service in no time, which has greatly increased our revenue by 10 times during the pandemic,” he said.
As online shopping has increased again with the restriction of the MCO 3.0 movement, large and small retail stores need to close and move online. To get their products to customers, they need an intermediary to deliver and Zepto plans to meet this exact need.
Now, with a 7-figure sum raised, Izzairi plans to establish more medium-compliance centers and expand Zepto’s coverage to denser areas. These centers will primarily be a site for the Zepto team for the classification and zoning of packages to be delivered to cities and the interstate.
“We saw that there was market demand and, since we were already making deliveries of the last mile, we thought why don’t we also venture to comply? It is a service that complements our fleet and the whole delivery process “, explained Izzairi.
Zepto’s goal now is to incorporate more SMEs, while e-commerce growth is picking up again. This end-to-end service will be offered in KL, Johor, Penang and Ipoh, before expanding to Vietnam.
The team is choosing Vietnam as it has already been fulfilling services with quite a few Vietnamese companies that are in Malaysia. Moreover, the delivery of the last mile to Vietnam has changed tremendously positively in recent years, according to Izzairi.
Since the ZeptoExpress business model can be easily managed with the help of the software we have been building over the years and which does not require a huge team to operate it, we believe that Vietnam is a suitable country to intervene in it. the cost to operate there is not high compared to the revenue potential compared to other countries.
Izzairi Yamin, co-founder of ZeptoExpress.
- You can learn more about ZeptoExpress here.
- You can find more information about Ficus Venture Capital here.
Featured Image Credit: Izzairi Yamin, co-founder of ZeptoExpress
