Bezos Invests in Ula - Indonesia’s Mom-And-Pop Shops

Indonesian startup Ula has secured its fresh round of funding from Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, who joined his first-ever investment in Southeast Asia. Through Bezos Expedition, Ula is mainly a mom-and-pop shop with a sprawling presence across Indonesia in its Series B funding. 

According to reports, Bezos participated in the funding through Bezos Expedition, the family office of Jeff Bezos that manages his investments, including aerospace company Blue Origin.

Ula has raised $87 million with this investment, led by Prosus Ventures, Tencent, and B-Capital. With the investment, the company’s current value reaches $490 million.

Earlier, the company secured a $10.5 million seed round in June 2020 and a $20 million Series A round in January. Investors have been supporting the Indonesian tech company to modernize its traditional mom-and-pop shops, known as Warungs, by putting their services online.

Nipun Mehra, Ula’s co-founder, and CEO said, “the company was launched in 2020 with a mission to empower small, neighborhood retailers with modern technology to boost their income. The company strives hard to meet the long-term approach to breaking traditional barriers by putting the technology, supply-chain, and data-enabled credit offering in modernizing the overall process.”

The company’s other co-founders, Alan Wong, Riky Tenggara, and Derry Sakti, have contributed a wealth of experience working with global eCommerce consumer goods industries such as Amazon, P&G, Lazada, Flipkart, and Booking.com to Ula -the concept of modernization.

Within the twenty months of its launch, the company has enabled more than 6,000 products online by servicing more than 70,000 traditional retail stores on its platform.

Motivated by the funding, the company plans to use the money to expand its presence across Indonesia and explore other countries across Southeast Asia. Moreover, Ula intends to expand its buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) offering and build a local supply chain and logistics infrastructure. Sakti, co-founder, and chief commercial officer at Ula, said,” the company’s core mission is to support traditional retailers. The company is planning hard to strengthen its presence, selection, and services in rural areas and hard-to-reach neighborhoods, enabling local retailers to accelerate the recovery of the businesses".