Anchanto Raises $12.14M In Funding Round

Singaporean Software-as-a-service company Anchanto took home S$16.6 million ($12.14 million USD) in a funding round, according to a report from Business Mirror.

The company works in eCommerce technology and plans to use the new funds for expansion. That will include launching a data platform, expanding to three new markets, launching new products and hiring “skilled talents,” according to CEO and founder Vaibhav Dabhade.

“Achieving profitability in these times is an excellent performance. I feel this is a more significant achievement than raising S$12 million dollars in the middle of the Covid-19 crisis,” he said, according to the report. “We are a capital-efficient company. A hundred percent of our revenue comes from SaaS subscription with a high gross margin; we do not buy inventory or run services shops or warehouses.”

The round saw contributions from European cross-border eCommerce shipping and mail services titan Asendia, a joint-venture of the French National Post La Poste and state-run Swiss Post, and MDI Ventures, the corporate venture arm of Indonesian telco firm Telkom Indonesia, according to Business Mirror.

With the fundraising also came a new partnership with Asendia, which will be a new shareholder and will be the fourth such former customer to turn shareholder following a similar transformation from MDI (Telkom Indonesia), Transcosmos Japan, and Luxasia, the report says.

Asendia CEO Marc Pontet said the company “intends to continue its journey along the cross-border eCommerce value chain and support the growth of an innovative technology company serving the international growth of global brands.”

“We have high hopes for further cooperation with Anchanto, and we expect that we are going to create additional growth and synergies for the company thanks to our logistics and technology capabilities,” he said, according to the report.

The shift of B2B payments to eCommerce has taken a long time and is still in process, with many companies still relying on paper processes. But as customers continue to yearn for digital, that trend may continue to shift.