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Singapore’s Ninja Logistics snags $2.5M to expedite Southeast Asia’s ecommerce deliveries

Ninja Logistics snags $3.5M to teleport logistics in a flash
Ninja Logistics snags $3.5M to teleport logistics in a flash

Singapore’s last-mile delivery startup Ninja Logistics today announced it has raised a S$3.5 million (US$2.5 million) series A funding round. The investment was led by Monk’s Hill Ventures, with participation from regional corporates such as Malaysia’s Insas Berhad. It had raised around S$200,000 (US$146,600) in seed funding from angel investors previously.

The logistics company operates under the brand Ninja Van, which specializes in next-day deliveries for ecommerce companies. The company claims to work as a courier provider for over 300 merchants in Singapore including as Lazada, Guardian, Pupsik Studio, and Love Bonito.

According to co-founder and CEO Lai Chang Wen, the investment will go towards accelerating “existing product development and market expansion within Southeast Asia.” Specifically, Lai has his eye on Malaysia “because of the cross-border volumes we currently have right now, allowing us to scale up quickly, and the lack of a strong logistics player built for ecommerce needs there.”

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In this respect, investor Insas Berhad will likely be of tremendous help. “Insas is a sizable Malaysian conglomerate, and they can help us with the Malaysian market entry and provide invaluable advice on the ground,” Lai says.

The Ninja Logistics team intends to roll out same-day and bulky deliveries, distribution points at convenience stores, fleet management systems for partner fleets, and “cold chain” – the ability to store and transport items requiring low temperatures.

To accomplish this, Lai reveals that the team will be forming strategic partnerships with large fulfillment houses “to streamline their processes,” taxi and private car fleets “to provide optimized jobs during non-peak timings,” and convenience stores for distribution.

Technology plays a big part in tying everything together. “[It] allows for real-time updates across every facet of the company enabled by push infrastructure, deep integrations with partners, and robust API and webhook architecture,” says Lai.

While there are several startups in the last-mile fulfilment space, such as Hong Kong’s Gogovan and Easyvan, Ninja Logistics differentiates itself with its focus on ecommerce. In particularly, it “specializes in optimizing routes to allow for multiple deliveries and pickups in a single route,” therefore keeping costs as low as possible.

See: Logistics startup aCommerce downsizes in Singapore to avoid bloodbath

This emphasis on efficiency is borne from the founders’ experience in ecommerce. CEO Tan Boxian and Lai were both from custom apparel retailer Marcella, which is where they realized that “a large gap exists between the promise of ecommerce, and the actual deliveries.”

“Ninja Van’s systems are optimized for next day delivery, and not an immediate ad-hoc request of point-to-point deliveries,” Lai explains. “This means we are able to optimize the routes of our vans such that the marginal cost of a single parcel is significantly low, providing economies of scale to our shippers.” He adds:

Gogovan and EasyVan serve the market in which a specific vehicle is required to make a point-to-point trip, usually with goods which should fill up an entire van. They do not provide routing which allows multiple deliveries and pickups in a single route […] The use cases for them are for consumers moving house, or for a business which requires a significant amount of goods to be moved from its warehouse to its retail store, for example, whereas Ninja Van’s use cases are for ecommerce or similar companies which require 50 orders placed today, to be delivered to 50 different customers in an economical fashion.

This post Singapore’s Ninja Logistics snags $2.5M to expedite Southeast Asia’s ecommerce deliveries appeared first on Tech in Asia.